I want a gaming librarian…
That may sound like an odd title for a blog post but it’s what I want. What do I mean? I want a gaming librarian. I want to create a position and fill it with someone who understands libraries and gaming and who can bring the two of them together.
Why would I want such a thing? Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last several years you probably have heard of World of Warcraft. The game has more than 7 million subscribers. SEVEN MILLION. WORLDWIDE. As a result, it’s going to make a billion dollars this year. ONE BILLION. It is everywhere. Are librarians paying attention to that?
World of Warcraft succeeds because it’s based on sound pedagogy. Wait a minute…did he say that? Yeah…I did.
You see, there’s this guy whose name is Robert Gagne and he’s considered one of the “stars” of instructional design. Back in 1965 he published something called The Conditions of Learning. In it created a nine step process. This process has become known in the world of education as “Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction”. They are:
Gain the learner’s attention
Inform learners of objectives
Stimulate recall of prior learning
Present the content
Provide learning guidance
Elicit performance (practice)
Assess performance
Enhance retention and transfer to the job.
World of Warcraft does all of these. Not only does it do them, it does them well! It does it in an attractive setting; uses “cool technology”; encourages peer teaching and mentoring; and – more importantly – it’s just plain fun.
World of Warcraft is the ideal learning environment. Learners know the intended outcomes from the start. They start with clearly outlined objectives from which they learn strategies by working independently, with mentors and in small groups. Individual online assistance is immediately available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As they progress they are given tasks that are also progressively difficult until they reach a mastery level. Along the way they receive rewards or encouragement to continue them along the path. When they reach a certain level they “graduate” and can move on to the next.
What if we could harness the technology behind World of Warcraft for use in libraries? What if we could create library systems that were more like World of Warcraft and less like Pong? Have we even created the Pong version yet?
I want a gaming librarian!
September 18, 2006 at 2:25 pm
I’ve been playing with Second Life, a 3d virtual world complete with avatars and much like SIMS, and participating in the library work there (I’m mostly doing virtual reference). It’s not nearly as big as World of WarCraft (maybe 700 000) but it has definitely got me thinking more about gaming librarians and their place in the academic library. I think with this new generation of students gaming will play an important part of their education, as well as their lives. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has as neat gaming collection if you haven’t checked it out already(www.library.uiuc.edu/gaming/).
September 19, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Speaking as a gamer, I find this concept of a Gaming Librarian rather intriguing and exciting!
While I don’t play WoW (I only /just/ got a machine capable of playing it… and the thought of paying each month to play a game is something I’m not sure I want to commit to right now), I have played MapleStory (another MMORPG — it’s free and more like games such as Zelda) and am very involved in the text-based roleplaying community (often referred to as MUDs - Multi-User Domain/Dungeon or MUSHes - Multi-User Shared Hallucination).
The thought that there could be librarians who specialize in gaming just excites me to no end. The merging of the gaming technology with academia has happened before, so I don’t see why we can’t get a piece of that. For example, MIT has a MOO (Multi-user Object Oriented) text based game environment — though I don’t know how active it still is. A good friend of mine specialized in teaching and learning in game/virtual environments and she said that this is a /huge/ thing in the U.S. (especially Texas, where she lives).
If we can get in on something like this, I think it would just be a huge benefit to us!
September 20, 2006 at 7:24 pm
I agree that digital games are wonderful learning environments. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that most digital games require learning at their core and that today’s digital games with complex virtual worlds and modes of interaction are particularly reliant upon a learning subject (player) playing the game.
Take Grand Theft Auto as an example. While its visual representations have been the cause of much concern, what so often is overlooked by social commentators is how the game’s large and complex virtual world is like a laboratory of variables with which players must experiment to find solutions to challenges. Winning the game’s mission-based challenges requires experimenting with vehicles, travel routes, environmental conditions, and in-game characters until one of many possible winning solutions is pieced together and performed at a high enough level of mastery. The world of GTA is a simulation of environmental variables in which players piece together possible solutions through performative and repetitive experimentation. It requires and helps to build creative problem-solving skills.
So, let’s get that gaming librarian and start seeing games as something worthy of academic attention, both in terms of research and instruction. (And why not administration too … check out Virtual U, a simulation of university administration for an example at http://www.virtual-u.org)
Andrew
September 20, 2006 at 7:34 pm
[...] Jeffrey Trzeciak, the Univesrity Librarian at my institution (McMaster University), has written an interesting post in his blog about the need for gaming librarians. [...]
September 20, 2006 at 8:41 pm
Hi Jeffrey: great post! This is obviously a hot topic — just this morning, a candidate for a history reference librarian positon here at the University of Oregon was talking about the enormous popularity and appeal of games, & the potential for developing game-like interactive learning environments to engage students in the research process, etc.
Note to Krista, we have a professor in the English dept, Micahel Aronson, incorporated Second Life in class; for more info see
http://newresearchsummit.blogspot.com/2006/04/introduction-and-my-second-life.html
Best,
Andrew
September 23, 2006 at 12:28 pm
If you haven’t done so already, you might be interested in checking out the Google Group “LibGaming”, http://groups.google.com/group/LibGaming/ and its supplemental blog “Game on: Games in Libraries”, http://libgaming.blogspot.com/ .
September 29, 2006 at 6:49 am
I am a millennial librarian. I just graduated with my MLS and would love to be the gaming librarian at a library. The only condition would be that I be given the chance to implement new programs, strategies, and fundamental philosophy. That my friend takes more than hiring someone to “take care” of that demographic. While I have insight into the online environments because I game and I know an amateur game designer, nothing can replace a staff who is willing to not be the experts on a topic, and open up the opportunity to allow community members to step up to be leaders. While I will continue to advocate services that support gamers as well as advocate to gamers that they give libraries one more chance to provide them with quality service, it will take more than just a gamer librarian at every library to make a difference. I want a gamer director, or a gamer on the library board, or even a gamer ALA president.
Second Life is not a game. Virtual Environments are not a game. However, this is just one aspect of millennial behavior
The University of Madison Wisconsin has a great PhD program about the education, society, and gaming, lead by James Paul Gee
If you are interested in games, you should see the independent side of the industry. That is where the true aspect is. Gamers don’t just play the games, but they immerse themselves in them, and thus produce their own creative works based on it. Whether it is detailed, walk throughs, Fan Fiction, Machinama, Podcasts, Cosplay, or even active discussion on forums. Gamers look at the world as a giant puzzle to solve, and each approaches it in his own way.
October 2, 2006 at 6:18 am
First we’ve got to make sure we still have “librarians” anymore, much less one that either specializes or is versed in gaming culture. In an era where libraries are getting less and less funding (and some cities don’t have any at all), we need to ensure that there will be libraries and librarians around (unless you count the “Information Architects”), then we can request expertise and specialization.
October 3, 2006 at 7:09 pm
I’m glad to see this. I’m just going into the library field pretty much cold (came out of a linguistics background and sort of dropped myself into a master’s program), but I know gaming, and I have always thought that, if nothing else, the gaming items themselves need archiving. Free access needs to be made to a large collection of games. They are history, and information, and knowledge, and all that, and things like degrading media and obsolete hardware have caused a lot of that information to become inaccessible to most people. That is terrible and sad.
October 4, 2006 at 2:37 pm
The New York Times recently (May 2005) had an article on the growing popularity of gaming and innovation surrounding gaming in the restaurant world. The founder of Chuck E. Cheese restaurant chain is planning to open a 300 seat restaurant where he will combine dining and gaming. He calls the concept the Media Bistro. He has researched and concluded that the core demographics of gamers are 18 to 35. The restaurant will have “tour directors” who will help diners choose video games and use the screens. While the Chuck E. Cheese founders are interested in the gaming trend in the commercial context, university libraries should see this trend as a dynamic product of networked learning. The academic library, too, can provide an innovative and stimulating environment for students. The university library can assume leadership in this innovation process and in a commercial context, can consider it an activity with many advantages for the library. The flexibility of networked gaming enhances the value of the product at no increased cost. The longer people game, the longer they talk about it. Thus they are effectively marketing the product and the library to their friends and acquaintances.
Gaming offers students a sense of actualized knowledge. University or College Libraries can borrow from persistent multiplayer online worlds. Universities are not only one of the most segmented groups but are often highly networked. Some universities are including gaming as a component of the curriculum in computer science courses. Some universities also offer computer game authoring courses that combine concepts of art and physics and are considered interdisciplinary programs. Academia is also embracing computer gaming as an important theme of research. With these key trends in mind, University libraries can help pave the way for advanced research in computer gaming and at the same time strengthen their partnerships with faculty. As well, developing a partnership with Information Technology or Computer Services would help integrate resources, and create a new/service paradigm for the innovative academic library. Engaging in outreach to students and faculty and eventually integrate IT, media and instruction will allow the library to expand the range of workshops and instruction sessions to students and faculty. This could also lead to developing a library unit that specialize in helping faculty develop courseware, websites, courses and promote advanced research in the area of gaming which is crossing many disciplines.
October 4, 2006 at 5:35 pm
I am a gaming librarian, MLS, Rutgers University in 1999. At my university we have over 700 titles across 6, and soon 8 platforms (including handhelds). We teach game design, amongst other things.
I heart gaming, ever since I Zork’d on my C64. My students live gaming, they don’t just love it. For this reasn I am 100% confident that if I was an avatar in an RPG, my library would get far more use. Maybe in that realm they would feel more comfortable asking reference questions…
I am currently writing guidelines for creating game collections for public, k-12 and college/research libraries.
October 4, 2006 at 7:21 pm
Games, if used in the right context by the right people, can help people learn:
http://silversprite.wordpress.com/2006/10/04/games-in-education-two-new-reports/
And they are also of relevance to libraries and librarians a number of niche ways:
http://www.ticer.nl/06carte/publicat/15Kirriemuir.ppt
October 7, 2006 at 7:55 pm
[...] by Jeffrey TrzeciakRead the entry Saturday, October 07, 2006 2:53 PM alicebarr Filed under: 21st Century Skills [...]
October 12, 2006 at 6:09 pm
This idea is interesting to me, and I do agree that many of our lap-top generation our hooked into a gaming mode. However, I know “gaming” is not for everyone, and I would be interested in learning about male vs. female engagement in this type of learning. I would suspect that more males would be interested than females, but maybe I’m wrong. I’m alos a little wary about Chuck E Cheese’s virtual dining experience……will this take away from *GASP* families and birthday party participants actually talking to one another??? I don’t want to ruffle any feathers here, but a saying I’ve heard is “Nintendo=No-friend-o”
October 13, 2006 at 4:19 pm
Gaming is gaining importance in other industries as well:
From the Globe and Mail, Oct.13, 2006
Management training: Video games are more than child’s play for leaders
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061012.wxca-games/EmailBNStory/Business/home
November 16, 2006 at 5:49 am
[...] And from the blog of the University Librarian at McMaster University Library Wanted: A Gaming Librarian. I really should start listening to my nerdy friends when they talk about Age of Empires, DoAC….or whatever it’s called! [...]
November 20, 2006 at 2:00 pm
Awesome Post!
Third Rake webcomic
December 18, 2006 at 6:56 pm
Personally, I never use more than one life on this if I understand this correclty. I just wonder why so many do not understand how this is. I guess that is the beauty of it all. Good post though!!
February 2, 2007 at 12:53 am
[...] was alerted to this position (formal) this morning at a meeting. The posting closes in a couple of [...]
February 24, 2007 at 2:34 pm
[...] and virtual worlds (Second Life) are of special interest to me. Some of you may have seen my post “I want a gaming librarian” and may be interested in knowing that we are, in fact, hiring a gaming librarian. This position [...]
May 10, 2007 at 6:42 pm
[...] think this was one game that everyone was really waiting to see. With Jeff talking about it, people wanted to know what all the hubbub was about. Due to Blizzard Entertainment’s server [...]
July 17, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Very interesting article. I’m sure most of students would agree that there is a link between gaming and learning. Unfortunately, I don’t see schools bridging this gap any time soon.
July 19, 2007 at 1:11 am
I’d love an expert to come to my middle school library to help the kids design a game that would involve the research process and in the process students would learn how to research.
November 14, 2007 at 10:56 am
[...] directeur des bibliothèques de l’université McMaster (Ontario, Canada), avait annoncé en septembre 2006 (en anglais) qu’il en voulait [...]