All of which is also a segue to note that we have a session dedicated to Integrating Non-Visual Access Into A Library’s Gaming Experience at the Symposium, as well as some other unique content I don’t think you’ll get anywhere else. Here are just a few of those types of sessions that I’m really looking forward to attending:

• Gender and Gaming
  “Beth Gallaway shares an overview of research and statistics on gender and gaming; Ph D candidate Beth King discusses how World of Warcraft develops literacy skills and creates community for teen boys and how The Sims develops literacy skills and creates community for teen girls; librarian Alison Angell facilitates a discussion on gender and gaming and teases out potential best practices for libraries seeking to serve each gender to their best ability.”
• H4cking ur Library for the Gaming Industry
  “This session will present collection development and promotional ideas for creating a materials collection that supports users interested in the gaming industry as a rapidly growing career choice, including a look at how gaming is cross-pollinating with several other industries, including movies and music.”
• Subject Access to Videogames: Beyond LCSH
  “The Library of Congress Subject Headings are useful for nonfiction print materials, but the options for subject access to video games are limited. Learn how to provide improved access to your library’s video game collection based on your community’s needs with locally-developed genre and subject headings.”
• What Every Librarian Needs to Know about Videogames and the Law
  “This session will cover two topics that I know a lot of people in the industry have questions about: video games in the library and machinima, movies made using rendered engines. First, the question of what to do about having a video game tournament in the library will be addressed. The discussion will include specific discussion on the legality of the tournament, the possible penalties, and the remedies to make a tournament in the library compliant with both copyright law and the End User License Agreement for the games played.

  Second, as more and more groups wish to offer machinima contests, we will discuss the basics of the law as it relates to machinima. The session will cover both the concerns for the movie makers and the contest host. By the end of the session, all those in attendance should be armed with the knowledge they need to take on some of these new, innovative programs at their own facility.”

If you have questions about these kinds of topics, then GLLS2008 is where you want to be to get them answered. Register today!

But the Kindle is changing this, mainly because I’m using my daily commute and other travel times to integrate reading books back into my routine. I’m reading less online and more on the Kindle. I’ve tried carrying books back and forth, but the awkwardness and weight just hasn’t worked well for me. Plus, I like options, so I like to alternate between books and magazines, which just adds to the weight. On the Kindle, I have fiction, nonfiction, and Newsweek, so I always have something to match my mood. And when I needed (okay, wanted) a new title last week, I was able to add it to the Kindle in about one minute. I do take advantage of free ebooks, too. It’s like having the stack of reading material that normally piles up by the bed with me all the time.

I especially like having Newsweek automagically appear on the device at the beginning of each week. I stopped subscribing to the print version years ago because I couldn’t keep up with it, but for the grand total of $18 per year, I can get this eco-friendly, text-only version every week. I do miss the pictures, but I read it much faster and more often now. In fact, having a weekly current events magazine on the Kindle is changing my expectations of what I should be able to do with an ezine. I’ve found myself routinely disappointed that I can’t email snippets to friends directly from my highlights on the device. It makes no sense to me that something that has a keyboard and is already on the celullar network can’t do this, but I’m sure this will change in the future. I certainly expect it to.

Overall, I’m really enjoying carrying around a library of current reading with me, but there are a few things I really dislike about the Kindle. The biggest issue is the placement of the navigation buttons. It’s just too damn easy to accidentally hit the “next page” or “previous page” buttons. And there have been a few times I’ve missed having a backlit screen, although the clarity of the screen in the sun is still one of the biggest advantages. There’s a slight flicker of the screen when I “turn pages,” but I’ve gotten used to it pretty quickly. My one concern is how well I’ll be able to find text I “highlighted” six months or a year from now. Only time will tell.

I’m torn about the proprietary nature of the device, even as I want more content for it. A few of the titles I’ve thought about buying recently didn’t have Kindle versions, so I didn’t get them. That’s not to say I didn’t order other titles as physical items since they’d work better in that format anyway. And luckily, a lot of the new titles I want to read are available for the Kindle, whereas they’re not available in other ebook formats. Still, I would much rather do without the DRM, and I’d still happily pay for my ebooks (”Dear Publishers and Amazon…”).

I’m ticked that I can’t check out Kindle titles from my library, but then I don’t use my library much for print books, either (partially due to the weight factors I mentioned earlier, but also because of some arcane policies they have on new titles).

So overall, I give the Kindle a B+. Rumor has it that some of the problems will be fixed in version 2, although I doubt I’ll upgrade. For my needs (and YMMV), the revolutionary content delivery system (titles just magically appear) and the convenience far outweigh the annoyances. I can really sense the future of on-demand content with this device, and I think we’re only a few years away from a viable system that lets the user pick and choose granular content from disparate resources that can be downloaded from the cloud to a mobile device instantaneously.

Once in a while I miss the paper, but I’m looking forward to taking the Kindle with me on international trips, and I hope it makes it that much easier for me to read multiple titles while away. I also hope to delve into some of the hacks to make my Kindle do more, but I haven’t had time for that yet. I’ll report back again at the beginning of the year to see if I’m still happy with the device and if my book reading is still increasing.

In the comments on that post, Jason from the Iowa City Public Library gave us a working example (working in an Innovative catalog, at least). I tried it out and sure enough, a few seconds after entering my cell phone number, up popped a text message with the location of the item.Very slick, and very useful.

Even better, Ed came back into the comments on that post and pointed at the script that runs this service. It was originally written by Adam from Bryn Mawr more than a year ago, where it’s still in place today. Not only is it freely available online, but there are very clear directions for sending SMS from a III catalog (thanks, Adam!).

If you have a programmer on staff or someone who knows just enough to be dangerous, now you, too, can implement this service at no cost to your library to make your catalog that much more useful.

Another great READ mini poster!

“The idea of creating Tag clouds is not new or unique but the Wordle application offers those in schools with a uniquely visual way to view and/or analyse some text. It is very simple to use and the results are created quickly. The style can be changed easily, if required, and easily saved….

We used this aspect in the library this week when we made a Wordle using a number of lists of banned books. The authors, the titles and types of books were entered into the text box. Overwhelmingly the word ‘novel’ stood out. A second Wordle on banned authors had William Shakespeare and George Orwell as the standouts. This could form part of a greater discussion about the reason for this and we intend to give the issues of banned books and censorship a wider focus at a later date, perhaps as part of Social Justice Week, run at our school each year.

We are also using Wordles as the basis for one of the competitions for Book Week. We created Wordles of synopses of various well known books (taking out any references too unique to the book) and printed out copies. One of the library staff members had fun playing with the colours and formats. We did one for ‘Bryan Strauchan: my story‘ and made it black and white. (Bryan Strauchan is a fictional character who plays for a football team that happens to have team colours of black and white.) Another book involving animals was done making the Wordle resemble tiger stripes. The Wordles look great laminated and I will also be putting up digital versions on the library website.” [Rhondda’s Reflections - Wandering around the Web]

“Out of the Box is giving $100 worth of games to whoever posts the best story about using games in education! The deadline is 8/31/2008. What are you waiting for? Go Post!” ]

This offer includes libraries, and I know we have some great stories about using games in educational ways!

Out of the Box publishes a whole slew of boardgames (including Snorta, which I really want to try), but they also distribute one of my all-time favorites, Apples to Apples. Did you know that you can make your own A2A cards using a special pack of blank cards you can buy for $5.99? For the trial run of National Gaming Day @ your library on April 18, we did some staff gaming at ALA, something we’ll probably do again leading up to the official NGD on November 15. I’m thinking of customizing A2A with a few…carefully-chosen cards about ALA. If you play this game at your library, this could be a fun way to tailor the game to your community.

If you’ve never played this great game (good for kids, adults, families, and any combination thereof), you can watch a demo of how it’s played. Much laughter is guaranteed.

So when Ed couldn’t find some overdue library books in the house, he started wondering aloud how the library’s services could help him out. Now we just need to think like Ed, too.

Now Where Did I Put that Book?

“All of the library books I have are tagged with RFID chips, which is used for inventory control. That should mean that I can use something like this 3M RFID locator device as a reader and scanner to locate a lost item.”

Wall of Books Revisited: Just What Do I Have Checked Out?

“No, I still haven’t found my overdue books, but at least now I know what they look like.

The AADL prints a helpful list of the books you have checked out, but doesn’t give you pictures of them (not yet at least). So I’m working on the Greasemonkey script that will insert cover images into that page. This is not that, but a step along the way.”

What I’m really waiting for, though, is Ed’s Greasemonkey script that adds “text me the location of this item” to a library catalog viewed in Firefox. I don’t think I’ll be able to use it for my home library’s catalog, but I’ll hold out hope it can be adapted.

Text Me the Location of this Book - Step One of a Greasemonkey Plugin for the AADL

“At the time I noted “how hard could it be to add this to my own library with Greasemonkey” or some similar off the cuff remark (oh how foolish I can be some times). So let’s pick that apart and see how I’d do this at the AADL.”

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!

“I had a fabulous time in at the ‘Gaming in Libraries’’ session of the Midwest Library Technology Conference, where they not only talked about games, they let us play. It’s more than a Field of Dreams approach, just tossing games into a room; I have worked with, read about, and heard from those clever librarians who design activities, resources that do what librarians do so well, put information in context for us.

This is not even meant as a post to ponder the implications, more of an observation I had a few weeks ago when I stopped by the Isabelle Hunt Memorial Public Library in Pine, Arizona — the closest town (3 miles) with a gas station (actually 2) and a market (1) to where I live. The population of Pine is likely a bit over 2000, and the library is a real gem….

And darned if on my last visit there, they had re-arranged the checkout racks of DVDs to make room for a single Wii station!

Yep, this little library has got Wii.” [CogDogBlog, Thanks, Liz D.]

Emphasis above is mine, because I love Alan Levine’s description. Although we’re not related, great Levine minds think alike.

What I really love about this, though, is that it shows how even small libraries can implement gaming on some level, as opposed to other initiatives that require huge increases in staffing or budget lines.