Introduction
Despite the recent surge of media attention, gaming in libraries is not new. It's been around for over 150 years. Chess boards have been a library staple for at least that long! Although the public often considers libraries domain to be books, circulation of non-print items like toys and games have been happening since the Great Depression. Even for traditionalists, the current push to incorporate game programming into libraries should not be too much of a shock.
Libraries have not always supported such initiatives however. Book-learning and only "good" books were often present in libraries throughout the United States.
Libraries have not always supported such initiatives however. Book-learning and only "good" books were often present in libraries throughout the United States.
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Entertainment-based services that encourage learning came back into the vogue however. As of 2006, Scott Nicholson, Associate Professor at Syracuse University School of Information Studies did a random survey of over 400 public libraries and found that 7 out of 10 libraries support some sort of gaming.
And it is about time!
Literacy in the 21st century requires much more than what has been traditionally called the three "R's"- reading, writing and arithmetic. These three factions are absolutely still required, but for 21st century learners, forms of literacy are much more complex and have expanded to many more than just three. Even the ability to read is a much more complex idea than the way it's been conceived of in the past.
Many other forms of literacy are required to be "literate" now.
Liz Danforth, librarian and proponent of gaming in libraries feels that games of all sorts develop important literacy skills: "At the very least, video game players need to be able to read well enough to set up a game and get it running. Even for a game like RockBand, they have to choose the player mode (single player, multiplayer) and be able to read the list of songs; while the songs load, they can read a short snippet about rock music history. A more elaborate example is the real-time strategy game Warcraft III, which features cinematics and "cut scenes," with text mirroring the dialog like subtitles."
Danforth notes that "without stepping far outside the game, video game players have manuals and strategy guides, cheats, and walkthroughs. Manuals are often quite short and mean little until the player has spent time exploring the game to achieve contextualization. Strategy guides and walkthroughs, step-by-step descriptions of how to find and solve every element of a game, can be pretty dense reading, often single-spaced fine print going on for dozens of pages. After finishing a game, players might also use these guides to go back and see what they might have overlooked, or how a different story line might have unfolded."
The bottom line is gaming attracts younger patrons, fosters a great deal of learning (the sneaky kind that even the most reluctant learner can't turn down) and makes libraries a central part of the community.
And it is about time!
Literacy in the 21st century requires much more than what has been traditionally called the three "R's"- reading, writing and arithmetic. These three factions are absolutely still required, but for 21st century learners, forms of literacy are much more complex and have expanded to many more than just three. Even the ability to read is a much more complex idea than the way it's been conceived of in the past.
Many other forms of literacy are required to be "literate" now.
- Visual literacy –" the ability to both read and write visual information; the ability to learn visually; to think and solve problems in the visual domain"
- Multimodal Literacy - the ability to "read" and interpret the same information in different formats
- Technological literacy- the ability to use technology
- Programming literacy- the ability to create useful change in technology
- Informational literacy- the ability to find, analyze and process information
Liz Danforth, librarian and proponent of gaming in libraries feels that games of all sorts develop important literacy skills: "At the very least, video game players need to be able to read well enough to set up a game and get it running. Even for a game like RockBand, they have to choose the player mode (single player, multiplayer) and be able to read the list of songs; while the songs load, they can read a short snippet about rock music history. A more elaborate example is the real-time strategy game Warcraft III, which features cinematics and "cut scenes," with text mirroring the dialog like subtitles."
Danforth notes that "without stepping far outside the game, video game players have manuals and strategy guides, cheats, and walkthroughs. Manuals are often quite short and mean little until the player has spent time exploring the game to achieve contextualization. Strategy guides and walkthroughs, step-by-step descriptions of how to find and solve every element of a game, can be pretty dense reading, often single-spaced fine print going on for dozens of pages. After finishing a game, players might also use these guides to go back and see what they might have overlooked, or how a different story line might have unfolded."
The bottom line is gaming attracts younger patrons, fosters a great deal of learning (the sneaky kind that even the most reluctant learner can't turn down) and makes libraries a central part of the community.