Gaming in Libraries by Matthew Cole Introduction
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Play your way to the top: Gaming in libraries By Matthew Cole Introduction Video games have come a long way since who have rarely or never played a video Atari’s suite of arcade games was released game to people who have either played on a home console. Children of the first video games for a significant portion of their video game wave have become adults lives, or had many friends who did. These themselves, and according to some counts, new researchers are uncovering deeper this population of first-wave gamers levels of impact and influence than their accounts for approximately 56 million predecessors because people who engage in members of the North American workforce an activity understand it better than those (Beck & Wade, 2004). This is important for who do not. various reasons. First, it shows that people It is important to recognize that video games who play video games are not destined to be facilitate learning rather than. General anti-social, brain-dead, basement hermits; in perception of video gaming ranges between fact, they will enter the workforce proving to those who classify it as solely recreational be as successful and resourceful as their and those who recognize the educational non-gaming counterparts. Secondly, it potential of video games. Both ends of this shows that people who play video games as spectrum touch on core principles of public children and teenagers continue to do so as libraries information and entertainment. adults. Finally, it means that the type of Therefore, this article will look at how video people who are currently researching the games can fit into the mandate and societal effects of gaming have changed from those expectations of a public library. 23 Libraries Need surrounded by multimedia technology, we as librarians have to recognize the necessity of Video Games helping people find their strengths and A 2008 study conducted by OCLC sought to weaknesses in the digital realm as well as find the publics primary motivation for the printed page. It is pertinent to note that funding public libraries. The researchers gamers are a new wave of world inhabitants: concluded is not standard usage statistics or “like the boomers, these people are so numerous that, by pure volume, they are Ask the Experts worth business attention” (Beck & Wade Every time you can change a 2004, pg.2). Serving gamers as teenagers reluctant patron’s perception of the encourages these patrons to continue to library for the better, the library frequent the library throughout adulthood. benefits – maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of that patron’s life. You Games & Learning cannot put a value on that moment of conversion, and no survey can From recent research, it is becoming clear capture it. We’ve found that gaming that video games can and do prepare people events make those moments happen for a wide range of people for adulthood. They can help youth reinforce and convert indifference into and apply the standardized knowledge they enthusiasm (Levine, 2009) are taught at school, develop resourceful thinking, and learn how to socialize with a Jenny Levine currently works for the ALA as their Internet Development wide variety of people in a diversity of Specialist & Strategy Guide settings. Ultimately, gaming can be an all- encompassing experience that takes the of the value they place in literature, but learning teens absorb at school and provides rather, “the catalyst that energizes these a platform for them to apply the breadth of adults to actually vote in favour of financial their knowledge in an ever evolving support for libraries… [is] the library’s environment. Yes, standardized education is ability to help people achieve their important, as it is the springboard from potential” (Levine, 2009). Of course, some which innovation is launched, but it is the of this transformative power can be found in unique gaming experience that helps make books, but in a society that is increasingly trailblazers from memorizers. 24 In an article for Computers in Libraries, listening, watching, playing). It incorporates Brian Myers, a reference librarian at the static parameters and structures, as well as Wilmette Public Library, very poignantly space for inventive manipulation” (Carr, stated the reason why technology, including Buckingham, Burn & Schott, 2006). Clearly, video games, is essential for promoting video games can touch on many of facets literacy: “Bridging the literacy gap will that traditional schooling addresses and it is require that we re-evaluate our perspectives arguable that because teens are more and reinvent our practices to better prepare receptive to video games what they can our youth for fully participatory lives in the learn in that format may have a greater years ahead” (2009). Nearly all video games impact for them personally. involve some element of reading. Remember that people who don’t read to begin with Epistemic gaming aren’t going to be reading any less if they are playing a video game; if anything they The structure of modern schools originated may “accidentally” be reading more due to in the industrial revolution; yet we are living the text that occurs within the games they in a post-industrial world. It is necessary to play, as minimal as it may be. As well, learn standardized skills such as spelling and reading occurs when skimming through a arithmetic, but in terms of being able to gaming magazine, or surfing an internet site survive and succeed in the modern job where gamers can go to find tips, tricks, and market, these standardized skills need to be cheat codes. In addition to traditional textual applied in innovative ways. From fielding literacy, video games, by their very nature, customer phone calls to reading x-rays it is improve people’s technological literacy. now the norm to outsource job that require Video games, specifically RPG’s, are only standardized skills. The best jobs neither solely textual narrative, nor solely demand high-level and innovative thinking electronic methods of recreation. For and the standardized testing that our school example, in Baldur’s Gate, a popular role- systems continue to rely on no longer playing game (RPG), the gamers’ activity reward graduates in the global economy involves many features that stimulate (Shaffer, 2008 Pg 3-4). This is where different kinds of literacy; “the game invites epistemic games come in to play. They are various kinds of participation (reading, the conduit through which students can 25 apply the skills they learn in school to real but it will increase your peripheral world scenarios that will force them to think knowledge of what it takes to become a quickly, deeply, and innovatively. pilot. In addition to the classic Flight Simulator there are a plethora of these type of epistemic games available: Microsoft Ask the Experts Train Simulator, Police Simulator, Farming While recognizing the literacy and Simulator 2011, and Cities in Motion, a learning benefits of some video games, we felt that by placing our teens in the game that challenges players to build the role of media designers and perfect public transportation system (CBS developers—by giving them an opportunity to design and create their Interactive, 2011). If a person plays an hour own original games and interactive of video games a day over the course of media—we might achieve learning their four years in high school they will have benefits that were less ambiguous and more consistent with a model that approximately 1460 hours of simulated recognizes teens as knowledge experience by the time they graduate. “With generators, not just consumers. (Myers, 2009) epistemic games…young people don’t have to wait to begin their education for Brian Myers sponsors the Teen Advisory Board and other teen-oriented programs at innovation until college, or graduate school, Wilmette Public Library (Ill.). He also teaches Java programming and game design or their entry into the work force. In these at Northwestern University’s Center for games, learning to think like professionals Talent Development. prepares them for creative thinking from an The root of epistemology is the theory of the early age” (Shaffer, 2008, pg. 15). method by which knowledge is acquired. Motivated libraries can take their programs Epistemic games mimic real world one step further, by offering teenagers a scenarios, and players have to think like the chance to not only play video games, but to professionals from these fields to enjoy and make them. At the Wilmette Public Library, succeed in the game (Shaffer, 2008 Pg 38). Brian Myers started a program that is now in While it does not count as job experience its fifth year, where teens design their own playing epistemic games forces gamers to games using a variety of programs. think like the professionals they are Social Literacy mimicking. Thus, playing a flight simulator To become fully functioning adults, youth need game will not make you able to fly a plane, more than academic and professional education. 26 Another aspect of learning that cannot be Another stereotype that video game critics refer underestimated is the need for young people to to is the ubiquitous violence that supposedly learn to work together. A long-standing creates anti-social, violent individuals. However, stereotype of gamers is that of the anti-social Beck and Wade’s 2004 study found two useful geek, alone in the darkness of their parents’ points for deconstructing these assumptions. basement. First of all, as many gamers can attest, Firstly, that “Juvenile murder charges dropped gamers enjoy gathering in the same physical by about two-thirds from 1993 to the end of the space to play together in a virtual space. decade and show no sign of going back up.” Providing a public space for teens to do this, like (Beck & Wade, 2004, pg.