Just a quick note that the pre­lim­i­nary pro­gram for the 2008 ALA Tech­Source Gam­ing, Learn­ing, and Libraries Sym­po­sium is now avail­able online. I’m excited about the pro­gram, because I think we’ve got some great tracks and ses­sions that will be valu­able for any­one try­ing to imple­ment gam­ing in their library or look­ing for ways to expand or enhance an exist­ing pro­gram. Like last year, we’re going to push the bound­aries of the con­no­ta­tions for “gam­ing” in libraries, in addi­tion to answer­ing your prac­ti­cal, “in the trenches” ques­tions (legal issues, acces­si­bil­ity, cat­a­loging, etc.).

Our keynote speak­ers con­tinue last year’s tra­di­tion of address­ing games & learn­ing while also help­ing to make sense of today’s hot topics.

• Andrew Bub, writer, par­ent, and Gamer­Dad, will explain how to help par­ents and play­ers find the right games for them.
• Jon-Paul Dyson, Vice Pres­i­dent for Exhibit Research and Devel­op­ment and Asso­ciate Cura­tor at the Strong National Museum of Play, will explain the impor­tance of play, not just for learn­ers but for librar­i­ans as well.
• Dr. Lawrence Kut­ner, co-author of the book Grand Theft Child­hood: The Sur­pris­ing Truth about Vio­lent Video Games, will detail his research about vio­lence and videogames.
• Marc Pren­sky, whose most recent book is titled Don’t Bother Me Mom, I’m Learn­ing, will explore Mil­len­nial learn­ing styles and gaming.

Fan favorites Chris Har­ris, Scott Nichol­son, and Eli Neiburger will be back, too. Scott will give us a cen­sus update on the num­ber of libraries offer­ing gam­ing, while Eli will explain how to fos­ter Civic Engage­ment through Gam­ing and give us a Poke­mon Primer so that we can at least talk the talk with the play­ers in our communities.

Brian Mayer will be join­ing us this year and with Chris and Scott, he’ll help us under­stand how mod­ern boardgames are dif­fer­ent than the ones we grew up with. Chris and Brian will also dis­cuss their align­ment of the AASL Stan­dards for the 21st Cen­tury Learner with boardgames and how librar­i­ans can use them to meet stu­dent learn­ing needs. Plus, Paul Waelchli will present ideas for incor­po­rat­ing videogame strate­gies into ref­er­ence and instruc­tion ser­vices to inter­act with stu­dents in a more engag­ing way.

And that’s just the start — three days of ses­sions, open gam­ing (both boardgames and videogames), dine-arounds with experts, and all of the fun and learn­ing you can han­dle. Atten­dance is lim­ited to 350 peo­ple, so reg­is­ter now. I hope to see you there!

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