My Official Position

Game cultures feature participation in a collective intelligence, blur the distinction between the production and consumption ot information, emphasize expertise rather than status, and promote international and cross-cultural media and communities. Most of these characteristics are foreign, or run counter to print-era institutions such as libraries. At the same time, game cultures promote various types of information literacy, develop information seeking habits and production practices (like writing), and require good, old-fashioned research skills, albeit using a wide spectrum of content. In short, librarians can't afford to ignore gamers.

The above (and all subsequent quotes) is from Kurt Squire and Constance Steinkuehler's Library Journal article entitled Meet the Gamers (April 2005). As I look closer at the role of games in learning, I am beginning to appreciate how much there is to learn and how much the young gamers I know have learned without any of us realizing it. Gamers at the very least learn problem solving. They must examine the courses before them, evaluate them to determine what is appropriate for the situation and test their choice. If Choice A proves wrong, they re-evaluate, and test the next choice. There are times where a gamer is unable to figure out a problem on their own, so they may actually do research out of books or online to answer their questions. Or they may confer with other gamers to get more information. Does this sound familiar? (think reference work)

"The parallels to library users, especially undergraduates, is striking. After all, library sites offer multiple, and at times competing, information sources that users must navigate. What's the difference between EBSCO's Academic Search Premier and ProQuest's General Reference? Likewise the whole issue of evaluating information found on the web, both its authenticity and its applicability, is a major component of library literacy efforts. Gamers grow up in a media landscape with even more complex, shifting dynamics than their parents did, and they will be expecting libraries to react to these changes."

"This kind of knowledge seeking and creation is common in digital spaces. Groups of people from around the world solve problems with an array of information, digital tools, resources, screen shots, and arguments. Commercial developers, doctoral students, and 16-year-olds in Nebraska play, think, and learn together. The discussions in Apolyton reflect a level of expertise as players are encouraged, even required, to bolster their arguments with evidence and reasoning.The most discernable barriers to participation are free time, reading level, self-confidence with the medium, and fluency in a somewhat technical discourse."

In my last post, I talked about what the word library means and said I think that libraries are places to use information. Similarly, computer and video games teach gamers to use the information encountered in the game. I would argue that gaming is perfectly compatible with the library setting and would love to see gaming in our local library. The added benefits, of course, would be getting kids (especially preteen boys) close to books and surrounded by books and readers, which would undoubtedly be a good influence on them. And also for the librarians, having these kids in the library for a gaming event gives the librarians a glimpse into the (strange) world of preteens, which would enable them to further gear programming and acquisitions to their interests.