I hope to get back to posting more about gaming in libraries soon, but until then, this is going to be a quick link round-up because there’s so much going on, it’s getting difficult for me to track it all. In fact, at work, I’m probably going to have to get a third whiteboard just to track all of the partnerships around gaming that are forming for us. I hope to write more about those as they firm up, but for now I’ll just note my gratitude to the Verizon Foundation for the large grant they’ve given ALA to explore gaming, literacy, and libraries and build a toolkit for libraries that want to implement specific outcomes for gaming services. When the press release goes up for Annual (where we’ll receive one of those giant, cartoony checks that I’m definitely getting my picture taken with), I’ll post a link to it here.

And that’s just the beginning. We have several gaming initiatives planned, and while I’ll be writing more about them soon, you can hear a preview by listening to the newly-posted episode 3 of the Games and Libraries podcast. It’s all moving very quickly, but I’ll try to post more frequently about it here.

In the meantime, here are some links to some good articles and posts about gaming.

• Leadership’s Online Labs
  “Tens of millions of people are honing their leadership skills in multiplayer online games. The tools and techniques they’re using will change how leaders function tomorrow—and could make them more effective today.” [Harvard Business Review]
   
• Game Time With Mister Raroo: ‘Games In The Modern Public Library’
  “The paper’s intended audience is individuals who know little to nothing about video games and have no idea how or why games can be an important part of any public library’s collection. The bulk of serious gamers will no doubt find information in many parts of the paper that is common knowledge to most game enthusiasts, most notably statistics about the average gamer and a discussion of the popular perception of violence in videogames.” [GameSetWatch, thanks, Alice!]
   
• Media-gam-arama
  “Fortunately, we’ve done an about face at our school in relation to games - yes, I believe we’re still having some filter problems with a few game sites, but even so, the idea of engaging students with games has been integrated throughout the school’s curriculum. While gaming, we see students engaged in cooperative learning situations, developing social skills, problem solving, decision making, and having loads of fun. Our school has had Scrabble tournaments, the 6th grade had its own March Madness extravaganza, we own Webkinz for the school - one per grade level, PE classes use Dance, Dance, Revolution, Uno, the music department uses Guitar Hero, we have had a Chess Club, and class sets of card decks can be found throughout the school. Our library student work stations have bookmarked, several game sites for student use and I’ve made it a passtime to continue searching for great student games, especially those with educational content.” [Book Bag Blog]
   
• What Games Have to Teach Us
  “Some snapshots from British schools and colleges: Joy Thompson used a business simulation game to teach maths to year 5 and 6 children with special needs. Tim Rylands used Myst with the same age group to encourage literacy, speech and writing. Martyn Thompson provided dance mat games for indoor and lunchtime PE us, and Stephen Fessey used School Tycoon, with 10 and 11 year olds, to develop their spatial thinking, fiscal skills, numeracy and social awareness.” [The Guardian]
   
• Making ILL a Game
  “We are exploring turning ILL into a game. The basic mechanic will give libraries points for sending and receiving interlibrary loans, with bonus points for prompt delivery and ontime returns. A leaderboard (competition drives a LOT more than you might want to admit!) might prompt librarians to become more involved in resource sharing.” [School Library Journal]
   
• Readers Should Get Game-literate
  “The makers of Bioshock, released last year and designed by Ken Levine, have probably come closer to real art than anyone else so far. Bioshock is a terrible name: any sensible person would expect the idiotic. Instead, they get a game based around Promethean myths and the work of Ayn Rand, set in an abandoned art-deco Atlantis. It’s outstanding, and about two-thirds of the way through makes a brilliant point about freedom of decision that could not be delivered using any other art form.” [Guardian Books Blog]