Jenny Levine-Gaming

Wednesday

• 90 mil next gen (millennial) kids
• Pew study, every college kid had played a video game
• Incoming college freshmen, good chance they would play 10,000 hours of video games
• Average age of gamer:  33
• Older people are getting into wii, it’s motion censored, not controlled by fingers
• Groups come together around games, retirement homes, different generations, families, peoples with disabilities
• Gamers excel at
• Willing to experiment
• Good at prioritizing
• Inherent distress of bosses (boss is the name of the villain).  “boss” is a bad word
• Expect different paths to the right answer
• Where do we personally draw the line?  Are these educational
• Candy Land-colors, numbers, socialization
• Chess-strategizing
• Boggle, Scrabble
• Pokemon-text, comprehension, complex language
• NASA has a Pokemon card
• NY times crossword puzzle-educational
• Civilization-statistics, strategy
• DDR-physical education, pattern recognition, planning ahead
• WoW-lots of stuff to keep track of, strategizing, prioritizing, working together
• You can do tournament play
• Public libraries
• Academic libraries
• Libraries have created games for staff

• Cost
• Can have kids bring in equipment
• Nintendo DS-very educational games

Virtual Worlds

Second Life Libraries and the Alliance Info Archipelago

Lori Bell

• “That’s where people are and that’s where people are going to be.”
• Need to be in virtual worlds as a third presence (after the internet)
• One of the most important things is leadership support
• Online resources are two dimensional and text based. Virtual worlds are 3 dimensional
• Had live events and resources for banned books week
• Lori’s husband actually joined SL to spend more time w/her
• Husband abandoned it to play WoW with son and daughter
• Real World and Online virtual communities
• Online and virtual can be worldwide
• Active people and watchers
• A lot of people go into SL to create, be it books, clothing, events, etc.
• Over 10 million registered members
• It’s a world, there is culture, recreation, education
• Alliance Library System has hundreds of volunteers from around the world
• Whyville..?  just getting started.. kids 8-14
• Reasons for being there
• 24/7 services
• It’s fun
• Have over 600 members in the google groups
• Over 700 librarians in world
• Reference group answers over 200 answers per week
• There are competitors
• Parternships
• HealthInfo Island, Renaissance Island, book discussions, training, collection development, collaborating, tons
• Exhibit space
• Lori is talking way too fast, but she has SO much to cover and so little time
• There are challenges, to be covered later

Shawn McCann

Did You Say Gaming Librarian?

• Immersive Learning (Gaming) Librarian at McMaster University
• He sits in his office and plays games.. hehehehe
• He really does everything.. instruction, reference, etc.
• He explore games and virtual worlds and how they are using be used in education
• Libraries were reactive, now we’re reactive
• Games and virtual worlds are important in higher educations.  Researchers are studying social, cultural and physical effects of gaming
• Spread across sciences, social sciences, humanities, etc.
• Important to students.. over 70% of people in US play games
• 44% are between 18-49
• How do we go about supporting that?
• Stick to your guns.. hmmm
• Console games = xbox, Nintendo, etc.
• You can support virtual worlds and games through services, like doing reference.   They can do instruction and have meetings
• They can offer classes on how to use SL
• You can support them through your spaces.  He wants a gaming lab.
• McMaster purchased and island in SL, and are waiting for it to arrive.

Jeremy Kemp  SJSU

• Assistant director of the SL campus.   Offers a full graduate level course, full credit
• He played a really really cool video… of a reporter interviewing a class in SL

Building Communities in Second Life

• Is SL really it’s own community or do you need some other things?
• We’ve gone from text based world to three dimensional worlds
• Now, fully graphical and has voice.
• There are over 50 virtual worlds  some for kids, some for adults, some are game-based, some are more living online
• They are meant to be done socially.. you and a community.
• Virtual worlds can be very serious, but can also be very fun
• Guiding principles for online communities
• You need software that promotes good discussion
• You need to be able to share information
• You need discussions that can be any length and that can include pointers to other information.. though it a bit harder to transfer information that is online.
• Conversations need to be kept for future reference.
• The community needs to be able to set its own rules
• There needs to be institutional memory
• Needs to promote safely and confidentiality
• Needs the ability to handle crisis
• You can’t rely solely on SL, on the environment; you have to rely on other things to expand…
• Great place to find and interact, but you need to use other tools like IM, email, facebook, Ning, etc.
• You need to think of other tools to help build that community
• Do demos for staff, show them videos, etc.
• Understand and support the communities that are already there

Trends

·        Take clues from gamers. Gamers are doing “SL w/a purpose”

·        Develop more capabilities

·        Lessen the learning curve

·        Lighter-weight” virtual world

·        Crossworld interaction.  The ability to go from one to the other

JJ Drinkwater

Virtual Neighborhood, Real Community

• She runs a library on Caledon, a nation state
• Partly historical 19^th century
• Her library serves the community by being a place where one can learn about the 19^th century imagination
• People form communities based on interests
• How do we serve those communities?
• How do we integrate library services into virtual communities?
• SL serves as a third place.. the local pub, the café, wherever you go that’s not your home or your work.
• It’s not just having a library that matters, it’s having a librarian, someone to talk to, makes the experience richer, and makes them big fans of the library
• “Library as a social node’
• Steampunk vs. cyberpunk
• For many, their role play life is their whole other life…
• Don’t make distinctions in RL, answer in terms of the virtual world that you are participating in
• Role play is an occasion and an opportunity to do research.

Sara Houghtman Jan and Aaron Schmidt

Marketing

Where should you market your website?

Search engine findability

• Search for variations of your library’s name
• Ensure you site is accurately at the top
• Minor or metasearch engines
• Buy AdWorks from Google
• Search engine optimization (SEO)

Library directory listings

Blog search engines

• Feed submitter submits your blog’s feed to 16 sites at once
• Technoranti
• Robin good’s list of where to submit your blog and feed
• RSS Specifications list of where to submit your feed

Sweet wikipedia goodness

·        List your library on the appropriate town, country or school’s entry

Wikimapia

·        Add location for your library and other community features of interest

Community website presence

·        Eventful

Blogs and forums

·        Local blogs

·        Technology boards

·        Metroblogging

·        Feedmap

·        Blogs by citty

·        Blogdigger local

Interact with local blogs

• Don’t intrude, but be available
• Find appropriate blogs
• It takes a while to get into the blogs

Presence where it’s warranted

• Ensure yoru library has a presence on local websites
• Are you linked anywhere?

In google, there’s syntax.  Link:yourlibrary’saddres to see who’s linking to your blog

Social review websites

• Yelp
• Citysearch
• Judy’s book
• Insiderpages
• Local2me

Social networking sites

• Create a profile for your library
• Major options:  myspace, facebook, flickr, ning
• libsuccess list

IM

• You should be communicating w/people via IM and text messaging

Make a/v content findable

Twitter

Well, I boarded my plane from Atlanta to Los Angeles, with the decision to try to sleep the entire flight in mind… So, I got on the plane, squished in to a seat that could not have been made for someone over 5′2″, and promptly fell asleep. A little while later I awoke w/a start. There was loud applause all through the plane…

I look up, and coming down the aisle is Jimmy Carter. He walked around and greeted everyone on the plane.  I smiled. It was happy. I got a picture….

So, I’m sitting here, at the airport in Atlanta, waiting for my next connection. Let me tell you, traveling SUCKS.

I flew from Lansing to Atlanta on the tiniest plane ever w/the flight attendant from hell. This woman tried to take my laptop and check it in because it was a small plane. Umm.. I chased after her, threw a very un-unlibrarian like fit.. and got my way. I think it might have been because there were several fit throwers at the time. She tried to get us to check everything! I mean, I understand the larger carry-ons and stuff, but my little ol’ laptop backpack? Ummm.. no. When I asked to try again to see if I could get my laptop to fit under the seat according to her specifications, she said there wasn’t time. Then, we waited for a half hour while the deiced the plane, and another 15 when someone demanded to get off. Well, we’re off to a good start.

it’ll get better from here, it has to. lol

I’ve been uploading pics almost daily so check out my Flickr (link in my previous post)!!!

I go home tomorrow, and I must admit I can’t wait.. it’s been wonderful here, but there’s no place like home (away from my mother!), right?

Hey everyone.  I just finished my first full day in Japan.  My mother is still alive, so yay me!  I haven’t killed her yet. hehehe.  Actually she’s behaving  very well.  I uploaded my first few pics… have a peek!  http://flickr.com/photos/theunlibrarian/sets/72157602268649556/