Week 10: REFLECT -- The role of gaming in libraries

I definitely see a role for gaming in libraries. Already some libraries provide game consoles as a way to entertain kids, but there could be so much more. Big things among school and college students are LAN parties, community socials where everyone brings a computer or console to a space and have a highly social experience playing multiplayer games. Within this idea would be great opportunities from an education standpoint, too.

Image: http://www.xbox360achievements.org/images/news/portal-2-chell.jpg

The best example of games being implemented into an educational purpose would be Valve using Portal as a way to teach physics and have kids create in the classroom. If we had sandbox and puzzle games like Portal 2, Minecraft or Cube World as educative tools, like one would use an art room to design creations. As well, historical games such as Civilisation V and Shogun 2 would be invaluable to a library in helping students learn about how battle strategy was conducted as well as famous battles of the era.

Image: http://leady247.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/dw3_20.jpg

For me, I grew up playing Dynasty Warriors 3 (link is to one of my favourite missions in all of gaming -- based on the real life Yellow Turban Rebellion). And as a result, I learned about major battles and real life people from the Three Kingdoms dynasty in China’s history. Age of Empires II gave me a general understanding of many major campaigns in the Middle Ages before I even stepped foot in a history class. These games can be both fun and educational, and I believe that dismissing them as merely time wasters is both missing the point and ignorant.

Image: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Gone_Home.png

Libraries are places of learning and community, somewhere to go and pick up a book to whisk you off to a different world. Video games do the exact same thing. Stories come in many different mediums, learning comes in different forms, and community can be fostered in these. Games like Gone Home and Depression Quest actually break barriers and can expose people to perspectives and stories they might not otherwise have experienced.

Gaming is fast maturing as a great medium for storytelling, and libraries, the place where stories are kept, should make use.

If you'd like to read more on my thoughts about gaming, I've written a post about player positioning in games on my CLN647 blog: http://benharkin647.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/week-8-video-games-and-player.html

Week 10: PLAY -- Gamification Idea for Libraries

Image: http://crystalwashington.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/foursquare_logo.png

Gamification is the idea of using game elements and mechanics to enhance an activity and have users further engage. There have been plenty of situations where gamifying activities have resulted in success. Take for example, RunKeeper for working on fitness, Valve Corporation for gamifying game ownership, Ingress for seeing landmarks, and even FourSquare for going outside.

Image: http://s.gr-assets.com/assets/challenges/2013/logo.png

Libraries would be best fit to keep people reading. I believe this would be best achieved through using a platform similar to Goodreads, a social network for readers. The Goodreads Reading Challenge is a great system of keeping people reading. However, instead of people setting their own milestones, a library could set milestones and release achievements like the Xbox gamerscore for reaching them (of course, libraries would not monetise, but the point system is an interesting idea). Indeed, this could extend to different genres, types of books, or even depending on how difficult a book is.

Doing various community activities put on by the library could net you further achievements. Integration with Facebook could mean these achievements would appear as an ‘app’ on the person’s profile. Libraries should be working where possible on capitalising on the established services of their user base. Twitter, Facebook and Google+ integration for gamification of information service would be an excellent way to bring people to the library, and perhaps even get people who would have otherwise spent their time on a video game. As games take the spot for most bought and used electronic entertainment product, libraries should cater to these changing times.

There would be a further sense of people being brought together, and the idea of achievements for accomplishing reading and other library activities would revitalise people to come to the library more often. The competitive factor of these achievements would be great too, and have been shown to be of addictive nature.

Keeping people addicted to books is the name of the game! 

Week 8: REFLECT -- What is the role of podcasting, online video, screencasting or slidecasting in libraries or information organisations? Do you see them as enhancements to the existing work, or services in their own right?

In this digital age, we need these mediums in libraries. What has been pressed in this degree is that libraries are falling behind with their old image of being book-centric and a means of simply borrowing books. A library is a community hub today, and these mediums enhance the activities already being conducted. Podcasting, online video, screencasting and slidecasting are integral to helping illustrate a problem, or how to use a database and search, or helping someone with a community activity.

 Even in these university subjects, the role of screencasts (especially) and the like have helped present assignments, illustrate an idea or as a means of showing how to use certain program. Podcasting is a means of talking at length about a topic, and these typically have others on the podcast to bounce ideas off. The best known podcast is arguably Ricky Gervais’ podcast which has been downloaded over 300 million times and has spawned two seasons of a cartoon TV show on HBO to visually play the podcast. His podcast consists of three radio people discussing inane topics from their lives. This speaks to the versatility of podcasting, that they don’t require rehearsal or any kind of stringent format (putting a slideshow together for example) to get information across.

Podcasting is simply a platform for people to talk about what they’d like to talk about. This would work in a library context as a means to conduct community discussion and make it available to the public for download. Online video is a cost-effective way to put together a presentation. Numerous sites exist to upload video for linking online, and the benefits to reaching a wider community are self-explanatory. A presentation can be given once and then posted online for more people to view instead of using up resources and money needing to repeat a presentation in the library.

Topics can be explained in online videos, and I see the library’s online presence becoming far more prevalent as more people use library services from home. Screencasting and slidecasting lead on from this idea. These two services can be used to explain library services, thus saving the time of both a librarian and a user. Why explain how to use a search or borrow a book at the front desk (which still should happen, the difference is there needn’t be as many people on the front desk with online tools available) when there are screencasts guiding the user through how to use a database?

Week 8: PLAY -- My Screencast - Allmovie

Here's my video for screencasting. Apologies for Dropbox that I had open during its duration! You can see I don't use Dropbox much anymore, I've moved on to Google Drive for the cloud files.

I used Screencast-O-Matic after seeing Anita's glowing review of the program. I have to agree. Super easy to use, all that's required is a click of a button to record and another to upload to YouTube.

This database is not as expansive as IMDb, but Allmovie is definitely more professional in presentation and much better at linking and providing ways of viewing movies, and in essence more beneficial for a user. There's also less user edited information on the site, so Allmovie is a more trustworthy database than IMDb for movie information.

Also, Dennis HOPPER, not HOFFER.