So, you are reading this on the OLD 8bitlibrary.com. 8bitlibrary.com no longer redirects here (to blog.8bitlibrary.com). Here’s JP’s “farewell” post to the blog…but first, some nostalgia…

In 2009, JP Porcaro and Justin Hoenke met for drinks and found out they were both ALA Emerging Leaders for the upcoming year. Our bromance continued with daily IM chats until Justin one day said:

Let’s start a librarygarden of gaming.

So, we did. We really started taking off and getting hits when Justin made a joke on twitter:

Let’s all get library tattoos.

And I was like, YEA LET’S DO IT. And that’s how this whole thing happened…Justin & I would brainstorm crazy ideas, and if they were just crazy enough to work, i’d #makeithappen. So we started Project Brand Yourself a Librarian, librarians shared it like crazy, and a bunch of librarians got tattoos.

So from the very start, within weeks, we strayed from the original “library garden of gaming” idea.

We came up with other crazy ideas and made them happen:

• ALA DANCE PARTY (and other parties like the NJLA ones and the ACRL Social)
• #TeamRock8
• The Adventures of Flat Justin
• Think Tank (which grew into ALA Think Tank, facebook’s largest active group of international ideas-sharing for librarians)
• Cranky Kong, librarianship’s oldest blogger.

We also had lots of fabulous contributors, almost all the top names in the field of “gaming in libraries” either wrote for us or were considered part of the team.

And then we shifted from crazy ideas to more traditional ones:

• We ran the petition to start a the ALA Comic Book & Graphic Novel Member Interest Group, and with the help of everyone who sent in an online signature, we made it happen at ALA Mid Winter 2011.
• We ran National Unconference Day ’11, a hybrid online & in-person conference. We had fabulous lightning talks at it by Michael Stephens, Jaime Hammond, and Eli Neiberger.
• We became the largest active source for game reviews for librarians, and eventually lead the charge to make GameRT a reality.
• We hosted Retro Gaming Days all over New Jersey.
• Got involved in Buy India a Library.
• Launched #makeithappen and inspired MIH.
• Launched #libgaming (which has since died, sad sad…)
• We ran webinars.

In our heyday, we were getting about 4000 clicks a day (which is BIG for library blogs), and alexa.com had us listed as one of the highest trafficked library blogs. The only blogs that were getting higher traffic at the time were the ‘official’ ones; the LJ, SLJ and some of ALA ones…

Lots of success here in a short period of time, maybe moreso than any other library blog. So why did we let blog.8bitlibrary.com “die”?

• All of our contributors are doing other things.

We all got busy. 8bitlibrary lead us to publication deals, speaking gigs, new jobs, and new leadership opportunities. Now that GameRT exists, we have a more formal place to do our gaming-in-libraries work.

• Blogging is boring.

We should have figured out from day 1 that blogging was not what we were about. We were a successful BRAND, but never a good BLOG. All of the successes I listed had more to do with 8bitlibrary as a brand, and less to do with blog.8bitlibrary.com.

• WordPress sucks.

The blog was constantly marred by slow load times, login problems for contributors, and errors on the user and contributor end. Anyone who was a frequent contributor knows what I mean when i say “500 Internal Server Error”

• We have better places to “publish”

Blogging is NOT publishing. We’ll get some game reviews actually published via GameRT hopefully soon!

SO WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE 8BITLIBRARY?!

When Justin posted this on the new 8bitlibrary.com, people FREAKED out (they though we were killing everything, the facebook page, the twitter, the tumblr (which is now the main site) and the blog) and I had to write this.

Where we’re left without the blog is where we always belonged: as the party people of librarianship. So we’re still gonna do all the stuff we used to do, like ALA DANCE PARTY, Project Brand Yourself a Librarian, and all the Think Tanks and subsequent parties…but we won’t have to worry about keeping up this illusion that we’re a “professional” library blog.

We’re still here.

#partyhard and #makeithappen,

JP

My son Finn has this really strong desire to watch me play Super Mario Brothers Crossover on Google Chrome.  I don’t mind it at all, but there’s only so much side scrolling one gamer can take (the plus side?  My son can now identify Samus).  With that in mind, I decided to seek out a new game for my Google Chrome netbook.  I wanted something quick and easy that would make my son giggle.  After much internal resistance over the past year, I decided to give into the Angry Birds phenomenon last night.

Twenty levels later, I leave the experience thinking only one thing.  If this is the future of gaming, count me out.  

Just how did this game take off?  Well, it’s very easy to see.  It’s easy to pick up, you get to destroy things, and the birds and pigs are all cute and shit.  The controls are simple, so simple in fact, that my 2.5 year old son even figured it out (granted, he’s a born gamer but anyways).  All of these things combined make it ripe for mass consumption.

But that’s not to say it is a good game.  Level after level, you’re faced with the same task…get those pesky pigs by launching birds from a slingshot.  Yes, the puzzles appear to get harder, but in reality all that you’re making attempt after attempt based on luck.  There’s no real strategy to the game.  You launch birds and hope to knock pigs down.  And that’s where it gets addicting.  There’s the illusion that there’s some thought behind the game.  You start to believe that you can become an Angry Birds master.  The catch is that you can’t.  You can only hope that this bird launch will do the trick.  You are hooked.  Goodbye precious hours of your life.

I’m a strong supporter of gaming entering mainstream culture, but this isn’t the way that I was hoping it was going to happen.  We need games to be recognized as a legitimate form of literacy, as a way for people to learn, understand, and interact.  Knocking pigs off of wooden structures with birds is just putting us a few steps back.  We need to highlight games that teach skills such as reading, writing, social interaction, and more.  We need games that change lives, not waste precious time.

And that’s my goal as I continue to write here at 8BitLibrary and join together with some amazing librarians to help start up the Games and Gaming Roundtable within ALA.  I hope to shed some light for the world on how important these games can be for the people experiencing them.

WHAT?  Picross 3D is a sort of sequel to other handheld Nintendo Picross games (see here and here) which finds the user chipping away at numbered blocks in a puzzle like manner in order to reveal a picture.  It’s sort of part puzzle, part sudoku, part trinket collecting, and more.  And it’s really addictive

WHY? I gave this game a shot a few months ago and since then I’ve been thinking about it nonstop.  The simple puzzle mechanics of the game combined with the ability to work towards an end where you get something (hey, everyone loves a blocky dolphin) has got me hooked.  It takes just enough brainpower to keep the player learning and working towards a goal and at the same time saves just enough energy for fun.

WHO? I really think Picross 3D could be a gateway drug into video gaming for many non gamers.  When I play the game, I imagine it having the potential on a non gamer as say, something like Angry Birds has had on the world…something that sucks up time, is enjoyable, and requires some planning to play.  The game will require a tough sell though…”hey, you figure out puzzles by decoding numbered blocks and the prize you get is a blocky dolphin/dog/Nintendo character”.  I recommend talking up the game as an investment.  It is something that may seem clunky at first, but the potential for a rewarding experience are there.

I know I’m preaching to the choir with this one, but it made my day so I thought I’d share.

As we’ve said before, games can bring people together.  This is beautiful.

The Emerging Leaders poster sessions. Justin & I mentored a fabulous team this year and they are presenting a poster session on Video Game Collection Development. [rsvp on facebook] [add to your conference schedule]

ALAplay 2011 will be a fun event cosponsored by LITA, the Games and Gaming Member Interest Group, and the Comic Book and Graphic Novel Member Interest Group. [rsvp on facebook] [add to your conference schedule]

8bitlibrary.com‘s ALA DANCE PARTY 2011. Get down, make love. #partyhard. [rsvp on facebook] [add to your conference schedule]

ALA Facebook After Hours Social. Good times in the French Quarter. [rsvp on facebook]

Emerging Leaders Summit. A few 8bitlibrary.com contributors are speaking. [rsvp on facebook] [add to your conference schedule]

YALSA’s Pecha Kecha: Teens and Technology. JP aka me is speaking and I need people to cheer me on so I can present it again at the ALA Virtual Conference. [add to your conference schedule]

OK

every library blogger insists on giving you advice on what to pack and what not to forget for #ala11. these posts all say the general same things:

• don’t forget comfortable shoes
• be sure to pack enough business cards
• don’t forget to eat

We feel these are usually short-sighted and/or boring suggestions. here’s some more important ones:

1. MAKE IT HAPPEN. aka #makeithappen
2. AVOID INCEPTION BY SLEEPING BEFORE YOU GET ON YOUR FLIGHTS!! This will also help protect you from extractors. Don’t drink anything on the plane in order to avoid extractors from sedating you en route.
3. PARTY REALLY HARD EVERY NIGHT. Rest during the conference sessions. Sleep when you get home from the conference.
4. GET AS MANY CONFERENCE RIBBONS AS POSSIBLE AND MAKE A CONFERENCE SASH OUT OF THEM. It’ll be a fabulous accessory for your many Supermarket Sweep-style exhibit hall runs.
5. BUY A ROUND OF DRINKS FOR 8BITLIBRARY.COM CONTRIBUTORS. Toast to the Nyan Cat.
6. START YOUR MORNING WITH A RED BULL AND A BUMPING JAM BY LUDACRIS. Because access to books should be Ludaversal.

Emerging Leaders present best practices for video game collection development

Are you thinking about starting a video game collection for your library? Are you wondering how to take your video game collection to the next level? Join the 2011 ALA Emerging Leaders Team G for a poster presentation on video game collection development at the ALA Annual Conference on Friday, June 24, 2011 from 3:00pm – 4:00pm in Conference Center Room 271-273.

Team G, comprised of Erik Bobilin, Abby Johnson, Kate Kosturski, Jonathan Lu, and Nicole Pagowsky, will present information on issues and best practices when developing a video game collection, including Circulation & Access, Selection & Purchasing, Weeding, and an ideal MARC record. The team surveyed public, academic, and school libraries across the United States and Canada and spoke with experts in the field to find out what innovative ideas might change what we know about video game collections in libraries.

ALA’s Emerging Leaders program allows new professionals to gain experience and create personal networks within the American Library Association by working with a group on an assigned project.

For more information, check out the team’s website: http://bit.ly/libvideogames

JP and I had the opportunity to work with the awesome Team G over the past six months on this program.  They’ve done some amazing work with this project that I hope you all will check out if you’re going to be at ALA 2011.

This is why Justin & all the party people are running to the SECOND ANNUAL ALA DANCE PARTY.

Will Manley just wrote a blog post about LJ Movers and Shakers where he says:

Will Manley: When I hear the term “movers and shakers,” I think of Donald Trump, Steve Jobs, Sarah Palin, and Hillary Clinton.

I’m currently writing a blog post where I say:

JP: When I hear the term “movers and shakers,” I think of people moving their hips and shaking their ass.

SO, let’s compare for a second,

Average Library Journal Mover & Shaker:

...yada yada yada blogging blah blah blah social media in libraries type type type mobile technology...

Librarian who moves & shakes at the ALA DANCE PARTY:

we do what we like and we like what we do, so let's get a party going, now it's time to party and we'll party hard

even their cats are moving and shaking!

Obviously we love lots of LJ’s Movers and Shakers, 2011 LJ M&S Eli Neiburger was 8bitlibrary‘s Patron Saint* even before he got library-famous by saying Libraries are Screwed, 2010 LJ M&S JENN WANN is our DUDE and she actually PICKED the location for ALA DANCE PARTY 2011 (besides being one of the founders of the ALA Think Tank, which has taken a life of its own…), 2009 LJ M&S Laverne Mann is RedheadFangirl here on 8bitlibrary and has the most contributions to the site after me & Justin. I could go on…

DUMBLEDORE IS A MOVER AND SHAKER

SO anyway HERE’S JP FROM 8BITLIBRARY.COM‘S CHALLENGE TO ALL LJ MOVERS AND SHAKERS PAST & PRESENT ATTENDING ALA ANNUAL 2011: PROVE YOUR ARE A MOVER AND SHAKER BY MOVING AND SHAKING AT THE ALA DANCE PARTY 11!!

RSVP on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=191826097521352

ALA DANCE PARTY is on ALA Connect: http://bit.ly/alaparty

* Eli has yet to respond to my challenge to a Pokemon battle.

@JUSTINLIBRARIAN WILL YOU WEAR THIS TO ALA DANCE PARTY?!

And so, I leave you with this: Everyone can be a library mover and shaker by moving and shaking at the ALA DANCE PARTY! #partyhard You don’t need a stuffy old library publication telling YOU who moves and shakes! #makeithappen

Getting your first 90 day layoff notice bites. There are so many things that run through your head, and sitting at the reference desk you certainly have enough time to think about them. It was during one of these self pitying “what do I do now” reference desk hours that I created the image. It was my way of saying we won’t be shushed, you can’t shut us up, we won’t stop protesting until all of our branches stay open. Then the whole thing went a little nuts, and all of a sudden I’d taught myself to screenprint, broken my mom’s dryer, andcovered the trees in my mom’s yard with tshirts. The We Will Not Be Shushed attitude and image hit a nerve with us at Queens Library, and we fought like crazy. We had 400 people show up at city hall, we stayed up all night reading in protest and we got most of our funding restored.

Now we’re facing it all again. The proposed cuts this year will bring us up to a 40% cut since 2009. Libraries in New York just can’t function with that kind of cut. But that’s ok, because our librarians are a scrappy bunch of punk ass book jockeys. We’re planning more and bigger advocacy events than last year, and we’ll get our damn funding back.

The process of getting said tattoo was kind of weird and very librariany. The artist who did it was into comics and had a passion for bad post-apocalyptic fiction, so I found myself doing readers advisory while in the chair. “You might like S.M. Stirling, ouch, Dies the Fire is really good in a sort of awful way, ouch.” A librarian’s job is never over.

Clearly, when I say we should be in a permanent state of advocacy I really mean it. I was lucky enough to create an image last year that people could be inspired by and rally around, and at least part of the reason I got the tattoo was to try to inspire myself again. To remind myself to fight for the people in our communities who can’t. To remember why we do all this. And because being a librarian has become part of who I am, and it’s going to stay that way.

Check us out at www.savenyclibraries.org. If you’re in New York on June 11th and 12th, check out the read-in. Sign all three petitions!
I’ll appreciate it, and I know that my coworkers and patrons will as well.

Thanks for the post Lauren!  FYI, Lauren originally accompanied the original Project Brand Yourself a Librarian group to Jinx Proof Tattoos in Washington, DC during ALA 2010 and was there for the initial branding!      -Justin

BTW, she is also like my new gaming idol! (Don’t worry JP, you still definitely in the top ten!)

Anyway, she discussed the concept of connecting gaming and gameplay to real world problem solving. You can watch for yourself below, but she draws some very insightful and meanigful connections between the values, emotions, and experiences of the gamer and how those assets can be bridged to the real world in truly revolutionary ways. Put it this way, when she argues that if we want to solve the worlds problems we HAVE to spend more time gaming… she got my attention. That is a huge statement.

Hope you all find it as inspiring as I did and continue to remember that gaming has been, and continues to be, a much more rich, complex, and meaningful experience than stereotype and popular culture convey.