CHIPTUNE

Chiptune is a genre of music where the composer and/or performer uses the sounds generated by “retro” video game or computer hardware as the instrument. Instead of playing a guitar or a trumpet or a violin, they play a Gameboy. Or a Commodore 64.

The phrase “8 bit” evokes a certain nostalgic emotion attached to video game culture, which is why the movie we linked to in yesterday’s post was titled 8-bit, why we’re called “The 8bitlibrary”, and where this collective of chiptune musicians get their name:

8BITPEOPLES

Before I was a librarian blogger, I was a video gamer. And as such, I got into this crazy genre of music called chiptune. The 8bitpeoples are a collective of musicians who use classic video game hardware to make music and then give it away free on the internet. I actually think they are at least part of the reason why I ended up becoming a librarian: the idea that information and expression should be free (including artistic expression) is one of the core principles of librarianship. The contest that spawned yesterday’s post, and inspired today’s, is thanks to the efforts of the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom in fact!

8bitlibrary.com is inspired a bit by them as well; while the “8 bit” in the name we took because of its nostalgic nature, and the “library” because of our love for Library Garden et al, the idea of “a collective of creative outside-the-box thinkers” in this field is at least partly inspired by the 8bitpeoples.

This is something librarians should seriously think about as we move forward: we aren’t book depositories. Even things like literacy are only part of what we do. Let’s take our inspiration from a variety of sources. Musicians. Chefs. Artists. I would love to see a wave of librarians who say “I became a librarian because of an example set by a musician“. I had a convo with Allen McGinley on our way down to #ALA10: he said he would love to see a librarian on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, not as a musician, but as a librarian. I ended up using that as one of my two goals for an exercise we did during an ALA Emerging Leaders event.

Anyway, enjoy some free Chiptune music via the 8bitpeoples:

one of my favorite Christmas Albums, ever:

Who doesn’t love Axel F?

The largest movement towards “using video games as to make art” is called Machinima. When you make a Machinima, you record video game characters as your “actors”, the video game is your “set”, and you are the director. Machinima is so popular that the PR campaign for the upcoming game Halo: Reach include humorous machinima commercials using Halo as the tool to make the commercials. Here’s an example of machinima:

And that brings us to the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom’s contest:

Banned Books Week 2010: Second Life Machinima Contest

Calling all filmmakers! As part of our celebration of Banned Books Week (BBW) in Second Life this year, we’re inviting everyone to take part in our Banned Books Week Machinima Contest. Machinima is filmmaking within a real-time, 3-D virtual environment like Second Life.

Your inspiration for your machinima entry should be “Think For Yourself and Let Others Do the Same,” the theme for this year’s BBW campaign. Submissions will be accepted between August 22 and September 25, 2010. Participants can enter as many videos as they’d like. The grand prize winner will receive 10,000 Lindens; a BBW 2010 T-shirt; and their video featured on the OIF Blog and in AL Direct. For more information about the contest, including rules and specifications, please click here. For further questions regarding the contest, please contact Tina Coleman (AKA, Kay Tairov in Second Life) via e-mail at ccoleman@ala.org.

You know 8bitlibrary.com will be participating! We will for sure be taking that little clip of a “video game book burning” as inspiration.

Please help us help the OIF spread the word about the contest by tweeting this link: http://bit.ly/deMZui

We in the library <yawn> conference land can gain to learn from the unique panel proposal process at play over at SXSW, sure it takes some coordination and work, but man – does it ever get the community involved, and get people riled up for the conference MONTHS in advance.

Case in point: “They stopped coming?”: Librarians Don’t Cry They Re-View panel proposal

We don’t need to replay all the library X.0 cliches, but we can roughly agree that there are plenty of amazing and radical things about libraries that the public/industry/internet has forgotten about – or at least has slid out of the radar. So here’s an example of taking action in a variety of ways, including cross-pollinating info-related conferences/festivals on the kick-ass-librarian’s agenda. And being good information inseminators, we can bring back the good components to put into play within our own field.

So, go on, take a look at the proposal above – give it a vote if you like it, and toss in a comment about what you’d hope to see, and how you’d like to get involved (they don’t call it INTERACTIVE for nothing). While you’re there, poke around and see what other panel proposals strike your fancy….then we can start ruminating about getting a similar process going within libraryland conferences too – hmmm?

Sooooooo we did get a bit sassy with the write up. If you need some help deciphering, this may help: dating acronyms

For devoted gamers as well as those interested in groundbreaking graphic design, this is the first, most comprehensive, and only critical guide ever published to video games. The video game has arrived as entertainment and as an art form.

Available Oct 12th; libraries should add to their nonfiction collections.  I hope to add a copy to my library and see what percentage I’ve played.

Halo, Grand Theft Auto, Legend of Zelda, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Final Fantasy…

It is presented by the Nebraska State Library Commission. All of the info and free registration can be found here:

NCompass Live: Tech Talk with Michael Sauers: Video Game Collection Development – Online Session

Michael will be talking with JP Porcaro, Virtual Services Librarian at New Jersey City University and founder of 8bitlibrary.com, about Video Game Collection Development and advocacy issues that all libraries deal with when implementing (or planning to implement) video games into library collections and services.

In this monthly feature of NCompass Live, the NLC’s Technology Innovation Librarian, Michael Sauers, will discuss the tech news of the month and share new and exciting tech for your library. There will also be plenty of time in each episode for you to ask your tech questions. So, bring your questions with you, or send them in ahead of time, and Michael will have your answers.

NCompass Live is broadcast live on Wednesdays, from 10am – 11am Central Time. Convert to your time zone on the Official U.S. Time website.

Sessions are recorded for anyone who may want to see them again or who cannot attend them at the scheduled time. Registration is not required to view the archived recordings.

NJ has a truly great library community.

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Simple & easy shared library ideas – August 2010

Ways to Engage Patrons
Front Desk Raffle
Run a fun contest at the circ desk every few months (e.g. get a quote from a book, display it and have patrons guess origin of quote. Those who guess correctly are entered into a drawing to win something simple (a gift card to Starbucks, DD, etc)

Raffle Ticket Inside Book
Variation of above, but put a “raffle” ticket inside books so people will be surprised when they find the ticket. (Bestsellers, hot movers, etc). The raffle ticket could even ask people for their opinion of the book.

Summer storytime

Does your town have a pool or a lake? There’s no law that says storytime must always be offered at the library. One library does a special storytime at the pool during the summer.

Book Bingo for the Whole Family

“Join us to play Bingo and win a book! All ages welcome, parents and grandparents too! No registration required.” All you need is some refreshments and some books as prizes (they use donated books so there is no cost aside from the refreshments). This has been very popular – the library who ran this had over 70 people in July.

Adult Summer Reading Program
A librarian writes: Based on this year’s water theme, we expended to the elements in general. We asked people to read a book or watch a DVD concerning the elements. We provided a list of suggestions to get them going. For each title, they fill out an entry slip for a drawing. We’ll do a drawing for some mugs at the end of August.

Teen summer reading program
At Long Hill we run both a teen and an adult summer reading program. For each book the patron reads or listens to, they fill out a raffle ticket. We draw winners weekly, and they win either a mug or a book (we use donated books as prizes). At the end of the summer we have one grand prize teen winner and one grand prize adult winner, each win a $25 gift card to Borders. We also offer the option for the patron to review the book, and we post their reviews on our library blog.

Storytime for Grownups

Because why should kids have all the fun?

Blind Date with a Book

In late January/early February, wrap up some books in brown paper, decorate with Valentine’s Day theme and encourage patrons to choose one to take home. Long Hill did this last year, it was fun and patrons enjoyed the opportunity to check out a book they might not otherwise have chosen.

Happy Holidays from the Library Staff!

Engage the staff by asking them to recommend holiday or winter themed books or DVDs. Then create a bookmark with their recommendations and give it out to library patrons.

Sharing Our Knowledge w/ Patrons
Staff Picks/May We Recommend?
Display backlist titles or staff picks that people may not have had a chance to read, at the front desk. You’d be surprised at how the staff picks fly off the desk. One caveat: pick books that are in good shape with interesting cover art. They are more likely to catch patrons’ interest.

If You Like cards in the stacks near popular authors

“If you like James Patterson you might also like….” these have been very popular at our library, I am happy to share the cards with anyone who wants to use and/or modify them.

Help patrons find their way around Nonfiction with shelf end cards that include not only the Dewey numbers but the subject patrons will find within that Dewey range – e.g 910.202 – 940.54 Geography, Travel, Ancient History or 600 – 618.24 Nutrition & diets, health & medicine

Recent Returns cart
In front of the circ desk, we have a cart where we put recently returned new books. We deliberately put the cart next to the book drop at the desk, because right after people drop off their old set of books is when they’re looking for new stuff to read. It cuts down on shelving, gives people a smaller section of books to browse.

“Bestsellers You Haven’t Read Yet”
Create a new section right next to New Fiction (or even use a folding bookcase or cart in front of the circ desk) with colorful books by big authors (Grisham, Roberts, Patterson, Picoult etc). You could even do a variation on the theme and do a “Best Books You Haven’t Heard Of” or a “Staff Picks” section. Assign someone to keep the display fresh and replenish it when necessary.

Get those oversized books circulating!
A librarian writes: “One thing we do is combine our browsing shelf with two lower shelves, and we choose a selection of oversized books there. Our oversized books tend not to go out as much as the other books, mainly because they are shelved separately. By showcasing them, not only do they go out, but people will go to the oversize shelves more than before.”

Oversized art books
One library I visited has a special set of shelving near the circ desk where they display oversized art books. As soon as they created this special section, the circulation of this type of book skyrocketed.

Summer Reading Lists
Make sure you have printouts of the local schools’ summer reading lists (both required, and recommended), and put them in binders. It may also be nice to post links to the reading lists on your library’s web site. We didn’t have the K – grade 5 recommended reading lists printed out until one of our staff members mentioned that she was getting a lot of requests for them. So I talked to the elementary school librarian and got the lists, then printed them & posted on our website.

Creative use of volunteers
Reading Buddies (teen volunteers)
Teen volunteers come in to read to little kids. Great all year round but especially during the summer when you have all those teens who want to volunteer

Computer Tutors (adult volunteers with computer skills)
Adult volunteers who have computer skills come to the library once a week at a set time, and help whoever comes in with their questions. It’s been very successful at Westwood Library and they’ve gotten great feedback from their patrons.
Another library described a similar program, PC Tutoring. They offer one-on-one computer tutoring to patrons twice a month, on several PC basics.

Better Communication with Patrons
Ask patrons for help in maintaining your collection
Patrons complaining about DVDs, audio CDs not working properly? You can create a simple slip asking patrons “Help us keep our collection in good repair” and including checkmarks where they can indicate what is wrong with the item. Then train staff to look for those checkmarks when an item is returned. And clean/repair item before it is reshelved.

Ask for what you need in your answering machine message
At Long Hill, we noticed that when people left messages for us at the front desk they usually failed to give us the info we needed (e.g. if it was a renewal) or they would be crystal clear in their message up until they told us their last name, which always ended up sounding like “Blarfengar.” So we changed our answering message to say “We’re sorry we missed your call. Please leave a message with your name, and please spell out your last name for us. Provide your phone number and your request. We’ll return your call as soon as we can.” This friendly message that clearly tells them what info we needed from them. It has cut down on the head-scratching we were doing when we checked our messages.

“You don’t have enough mysteries.”
One librarian writes: I met an elderly gentleman at a community event. He told me he stopped using our library because we didn’t have many mysteries. When I asked him for more details I learned that he thought the only mysteries we owned were on the New Book shelves. So now we have a sign on our New Mysteries shelves that says “We have over 7,500 mystery novels and many others available from other libraries at no charge…”

Cheap Advertising/Marketing
Use printable business cards to advertise services. For instance, if you want to promote Reference USA you can print business cards and hand them out to business patrons for them to file in their wallet, where they might actually have a chance of finding it when they need it.

Contact your local newspaper and find out if they have “community blogs.” Long Hill’s local newspaper encouraged us to start a blog with them. We use it to promote library events and what is interesting is that the newspaper staff read our blog, so occasionally they will print an article in the paper about the library even though we didn’t send them a press release – they just take the info from our blog.

At Long Hill we get BookPage book review magazine (for patrons) and we subscribe to the NextReads database (providing 21+ book related email newsletters people can sign up for.) When BookPage comes we put a sticker on it saying “Like what you read here? Sign up for NextReads for even more great recommendations.” To increase use of NextReads newsletters we also created easy sign up sheets and put them all around the library (including in our New Book binder) to encourage people to sign up. (We also use NextReads for our monthly children’s events email newsletter.)

Tax Forms
As you know the State of New Jersey stopped providing tax forms and instructional booklets this year. One of Long Hill’s staff members suggested we print out a couple copies of the instructional booklet, put them in binders and allow patrons to check them out for 7 days. This was a great way for us to serve the patrons

Easy Technology Tools
A librarian writes “We are a small library and only have 4 public Internet computers. We also have a large number of latchkey kids. This summer we decided to implement separate adult and juvenile usage times. Adults get their time on the computers from 10:30 to 12:30 and kids get their time from 2 to 4. Now we don’t have adults complaining about the noisy kids at the computers with them, and can guarantee that kids won’t be bothered by adults during their designated time period.”

Digital frame
You can get a cheap digital frame and put pictures from library events on it. Long Hill has this at our front desk. The kids especially are mesmerized by this – they look for themselves and their friends in the pictures.

We’re happy to announce that libraries can now register for National Gaming Day 2010, which will take place on Saturday, November 13.

Registering will also get your location on the national map we’ll be promoting to both the public and the press. Does your library plan to participate in the national Rock Band and/or Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournaments? Be sure to register so we can work with you ahead of time to get everything in place and tested.

National Gaming Day needs your help!!!

Please visit this link for the full post. Help us help the gaming-in-libraries cause!

Hi, Everyone –

I’m happy to say that we have more international libraries signing up for National Gaming Day this year. Unfortunately, we can’t ship the free donation to them, but they still want to participate (hooray for international libraries!).

Right now, a foreign services librarian with the State Department named Elenita is working with libraries worldwide that are partnering with U.S. embassies. She’s asking for our help to give them ideas for games they can play on NGD (Saturday, November 13).

“I would like to suggest free games that they can find on the Internet to play on NGD. Do you know any paper-based games, such as crossword puzzles or word games for them to try? Anything that is low-tech or no-tech based is preferable. Many participants are learning English as a foreign language.”

Does anyone have suggestions to help with this? TIA!

HAPPY GAMING, 8BITLIBRARIANS.

At first, I thought that this was addressing the library’s space needs and my answer would tend to focus on our upcoming expansion project. But, that stubborn crooked eyebrow would remain and I would soon realize that we’re really dealing with The Question: “Why do you have video games in the library?”

My imaginative Animal Crossing-loving side (and possible indication of dissociative identity disorder) wonders if I should go all Pelly or Phyllis on this one (ed. note: I have 99 game design reasons for having a library in Animal Crossing, if you’d ever like to hear them). I try to stick with Pelly, but it’s tricky business at times. Hand-eye coordination? Slightly redundant to talk about in Northern Maine: the land of potato harvesters, mechanized lumber equipment, and year-round power sports.  Drawing in reluctant readers? Downplays the literacy skills gained through gaming and just…sounds…sketchy…

When I first started at Turner Memorial Library 1.5 years ago, a public Wii was already being offered to patrons. 15.2% of folks in Aroostook County live below the poverty line and Presque Isle’s median household income tends to look a bit like a typo at $29,325, so I theorized that offering video game programming might provide young patrons access that they couldn’t receive at home.

I was half-right. A number of young patrons quickly pointed out that they had a Wii or other gaming console at home, sometimes multiples of the same system (“I have an Xbox 360 and my dad has an Xbox 360.”) Simply having a Wii available didn’t necessarily mean that anyone wanted to use it. And…wait a minute…why does Dad have his own Xbox 360?

Flashback. Growing up in rural Louisiana with a NES, SNES, and GameBoy was a pretty single-player experience. Sure, there was Michael on bus 4-N in Natalbany who had that super-sweet Mario Brothers lunchbox…but a playdate always failed to materialize. So while, sure, I got the hand-eye coordination, the perseverance, the pattern recognition skills, the increased cognitive function…I also developed the horrible phrase, “Leave me alone…I’m playing video games!”

Social access.

I started with special game days focused on social games like Mario Kart Wii. Researched best practices. Made wild hand gestures at every patron that came near me, “Did you seeeee? We have a Wiiiiii?” And I set up the Kumbaya rule instead of firm time limits: “You [two random patrons] can play together now, or you can wait a half-hour until this player finishes and then you have a half-hour to play.” Ultimately, most players would rather play with each other. A 10 year-old will patiently play Lego Star Wars with a 5 year-old giving pointers along the way. A tween from the homeless shelter might finally beat the watery horrors of New Super Mario Bros. Wii World 4 with the help of a player with autism. Two sisters in a perpetual state of conflict manage to find giggly common ground picking noses in Wario Ware Smooth Moves.

Of course, this common ground is also found through intergenerational game play. Sure, I keep a special place in my heart for the grammy and granddaughter who like to work on their Miis together and then completely annihilate each other in Mario Kart, but there’s just something about Endless Ocean. One evening, I quietly watched as a young mother and son shared reading duties as they tackled missions and identified sea life. It doesn’t hurt that the game neatly fell into this year’s Collaborative Summer Reading Program theme of ‘Make a Splash’ and that both patrons left with an armful of books on fish and whales.

Games do not necessarily have to cancel out other learning/entertainment/storytelling formats.  As a youth librarian, it’s always critical to respect the values of the families that I work with, but I can still find a way to advocate the games I love and integrate them into my community. As games researcher Jane McGonigal pointed out in her 2010 TED talk:

“There is a lot of interesting research that shows that we like people better after we play a game with them, even if they’ve beaten us badly. And the reason if, it takes a lot of trust to play a game with someone. We trust that they will spend their time with us, that they will play by the same rules, value the same goal, they’ll stay with the game until it’s over.”

True ‘nuff.

Some things to point out:

1. We offer video game programming along with board/card game programming for kids, teens, and adults. Board/card games tend to be most popular during the winter and school year. The library hosts clubs for Bakugan and Yu-Gi-Oh matches (started and facilitated by library patrons), which are both quite popular. The library also hosts quarterly USCF-rated chess tournaments. I find that the social benefits of offering board/card games to our patrons are similar to video games. For this year’s National Gaming Day, I’ll be offering a free workshop for adults on using, playing, and troubleshooting the Wii to promote intergenerational game play.
2. I keep Wii games and Wiimotes close to my desk. Patrons request to use the Wii and I usually help get things started. Young patrons usually take responsibility for returning the games/controllers to the desk.
3. Although vibrant, our community/patronage is certainly small compared to some other libraries offering video games. You may find that a Kumbaya system doesn’t work well and opt for firmer time limits. Also, after working in an adult crisis stabilization unit and being part of a blended family, I feel pretty comfortable resolving conflicts. If that’s not your thing…go with firmer time limits.
4. Someone will eventually throw a Wiimote. It’s infrequent, but, yes, embrace the silicone sleeve.

Dianna Leighton is Youth Librarian at the Mark & Emily Turner Memorial Library in Presque Isle, Maine. Her favorite game is Monkey Puncher for Game Boy Color, which usually makes her laugh inappropriately.

Photo by Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer for the Portland Press Herald

Library’s game to attract teen patrons :Portland adds video games and gaming get-togethers to keep young people coming back.

When I talk about gaming in the library, I’m often vague and quite hippie-ish with what I’m going for.  I need an editor for everything I do.  Luckily, the teens of Portland, ME are there to finish my sentences.

All summer, Max and Josh Tommer, ages 10 and 16, respectively, have been coming to game night, playing a board game called Settlers of Catan.

“I just wish this was our house,” Max said.

This is why we’re gaming in the library.