I've read Jenny's The Shifted Librarian blog for several years now and she has frequently talked about gaming in the library and has told how they used gaming at different libraries her former place of work in Illinois. They have had game nights where teens bring in their own pcs to network and play together. The teens have responded well to the addition of games in the library and even use the library more. I think that a library would need to have a separate room for gaming to keep from disturbing other patrons.
The games do require skills in remembering how things work, especially in other realities, what instructions are needed to play the game. Many have backgrounds that need to be read to understand how to play the game. Some require players to work together to accomplish tasks. The skills needed to play many games are more than just mindless staring at the screen.
I believe larger libraries would be able to handle gaming much better than small libraries. They tend to have computer rooms and techies that would be able to set up gaming pcs. That said, it might be something that could be taken on the road to let other libraries try it out.
So far I haven't been able to get my pc to play the Carnegie Mellon games, so I'll have to report later on that.
Monday, May 19, 2008
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