Library Stuff

Star Tribune – “National Gaming Day invites kids and families to go to their local branch to play everything from Monopoly to “Rock Band.”

New Yorker – “How do you make pulling an all-nighter in the library on a Friday—the stuff of collegiate nightmares—an appealing prospect? Host an interactive scavenger hunt and set it at the New York Public Library. “Find the Future” was part of the library’s centennial celebration, and it brought together five hundred bright-eyed book lovers at 7 P.M. on Friday evening and released them, bleary-eyed, around 5 A.M. the following morning. In the hours between, artifacts were discovered, powers were unleashed, secret messages from the future were intercepted, and a book was written.”

From USAToday.

Times Union – “Today, though, the teens are playing Yu-Gi-Oh (pronounced You-Ge-O) at Schenectady’s Mont Pleasant library as part of National Gaming Day, a three-hour event where libraries across the country compete simultaneously. Video games are the program’s primary focus, but card and board varieties are also part of the day. Nearly all of the gamers at Mont Pleasant, one of about a half-dozen local participating libraries, opt for the games that don’t require a screen or a joystick. At the moment, the kids on computers care more about MySpace and YouTube than Sonic or games off of Nickelodeon.com.”

Kotaku – “This is a story about a library issuing a partial ban on the playing of video games, but really, it makes sense. Actually, it’s good news, because it means that kids still choose to hang out at libraries. Of course, this is in Utah, so such wholesomeness is unsurprising.”

Houston Game Examiner – “I guess “Shh! This is a library” is going to become a thing of the past.”

It’s National Gaming Day @ Your Library today.  Hopefully all stories and blog posts will be about building community and not how games make us more literate.

Planned phenomenon – “A recent study by the American Library Association revealed that many librarians already use games to attract young people and, ideally, get them interested in books.”

Can someone please point me to this study?  I know they are going to study gaming and literacy, but I didn’t know that they had done it already.

Kotaku – “In an effort to get the kids to read books, Cape Coral, Florida libraries are bringing in Wiis, in a classic bait and switch scam that will get the youth hooked on “learning.”

Wayne Bivens-Tatum – “If we really wanted to attract students and make the library fun, perhaps we should use library space for pubs.”

Brian Mathews – “If you are a librarian with a blog then you have to mention gaming from time to time.”