Ear­lier this year I high­lighted the School Library Sys­tem of Gene­see Val­ley BOCES’ work map­ping boardgames to the Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion of School Librar­i­ans’ (AASL) Stan­dards for the 21st Cen­tury Learner. The BOCES guys have kept push­ing for­ward with this work, and I really appre­ci­ate how they make it avail­able for everyone.

In prepa­ra­tion for this week’s Gen­Con (a really big gam­ing con­ven­tion for the pub­lic), Brian Mayer has adapted the orig­i­nal doc­u­ment map­ping the AASL stan­dards into a one-page hand­out for the pub­lic (PDF). Take a look at his hand­i­work, as it makes a great con­ver­sa­tion starter about gam­ing in pub­lic and school libraries.

Brian also has a great post explain­ing Why Games Belong in Libraries.

“The inclu­sion of gam­ing in a library col­lec­tion is not unex­pected if you take some per­spec­tive. Libraries hit a turn­ing point when they made the deci­sion to start includ­ing pop­u­lar media in their col­lec­tions. By doing so, they shifted their col­lec­tion devel­op­ment prac­tices to be more inclu­sive of what their patrons want, embrac­ing the desires of the com­mu­nity. They also opened the door to more non-traditional resources. And by con­tin­u­ing to develop a more inclu­sion­ary col­lec­tion devel­op­ment pol­icy, libraries are lay­ing the foun­da­tion for build­ing a col­lec­tion of ideas.…

Add to this, the mat­u­ra­tion of board games over the last twenty years and you can start to see the value that games hold as com­mu­nity resources. They have grown into another avenue of cre­ative expres­sion that, like a good book or song, can cap­ture and share ideas with those who invest the time.” [Library Gamer]