Two session workshop. Eli Neiberger, Technology Mgr at Ann Arbor District Library.
Videogames as a Service.
"Videogames are not a niche." Pew Internet and American Life Project study. Each successive age of kids increases their use of gaming. Becoming part of our culture.
"Email is how you talk to old people!"
More adult women then teens playing games online!
69% of US Heads of Household report that they play videogames.
88% of gamers report they voted in last election.
Kid Gamers
Gaming events for children - positive thing. Positive interaction between kids and teens! Work together. (Idea for our YA person - we do Book Buddies with kids and teens - could do Game Buddies!)
Wii functions open up gaming not only to older gamers (retirees), but also at the bottom end, with younger kids who don't have the fine motor control for the controllers.
Other thing about kid gamers - Pokemon. There are more Pokemon than Periodical Table, and the kids learn all of them. Great for development. Pokemon games have tons of text. "Playing Pokemon is not at odds with the goals of literacy." Quite the contrary.
Teen Gamers
We have purely recreational programs for adults - why not for teens? "Why does everything we do for teens have to have Dave Eggers involved?" Have a light touch - they're very sensitive to the bait and switch.
Hysterical picture of Eli as SuperMario with his kid dressed as Luigi.
As a parent, he's not worried about his child's screen time - he had to read early in order to play the games. He's no more into videogames than any other kid is into his dad's hobbies.
Senior Gamers
Mostly because of the Wii, opened up to seniors for first time in their lives. Have Wii Bowling leagues, just like they did all their lives with real bowling. And it's something they can do with their grandkids that their grandkids actually want to do.
Videogame sales are almost ½ of book sales in last few years.
Techsource booth at ALA – only thing the maintenance guys would stop for.
Why Videogames?
An $11 billion business – no book rental business in US. Video business because we resisted getting popular titles for long enough for business to take over.
At AADL events, lots of boys. Girls come to other stuff. DDR will bring the girls in at about 50%. Pokemon are very popular with elementary girls, less stigma. Girls tend to "wipe the floor with the boys." lol.
Great marketing tool for the library.
Allows these kids to show their expertise in an area society doesn't normally value. They have kids do color commentary.
Non-pedantic relationship with kids in library. When you step into the DDR line, you change your relationship with these kids at a fundamental level. YOu're part of the community.
Harness the power of peer pressure. Can turn behavior problems into solutions.
Careful...it might work. Once you're doing them, relatively easy to scale.
But this is a Library!
The things you hear ppl today say about videogames is what people were saying about comic books in the 50's, or 3-act plays in 1797.
This is a completely logical next step for libraries.
YALSA: part of YA job is to advocate for YA interests.
Games are content too.
Not all patrons read for leisure.
Storytime is to Picturebooks as Tournaments are to Videogames. Making a social event out of something that would be consumed alone normally.
We're sometimes uncomfortable with the competition aspect, but it's okay.
The Payoff
Comments from Parents.
Make our library a focus of their interests.
Get the boys in the door.
Guaranteed to induce Gasps.
Promote your Core Services to a tough audience. - anti-cool stigma of being inside the library. They are incurring a social cost to come into your building.
They're going to be taxpayers someday
It's not just for teens.
Transform Indifference into Enthusiasm and Respect.
We've already lost one generation - 20-somethings think of library as place to take their kids for storytime.
Discussion of Search Institutes Hidden Assets list. They went through these and found they met 19 of 40.
Scatter game magazines and manga during events to encourage (passively) reading for pleasure.
Values: conflict resolution, social justice, etc.
To Circ, or What?
MARC records - catalogers don't want to hear about it.
Intense competition from video rental industry. Big.
Builds community to have such a collection.
Issues of what games (T for Teen, M for Mature, etc.) to get, cost effectiveness.
At video game events, you get better cost effectiveness throughout. They spent $5K for tournament collection - that would be paltry for circ'ing collection, but for tournament, the cost per person goes really low.
Kiosks and The Bun - image problem. Service attitude - shhh. If you have a video kiosk/game room, you need to be aware of noise issue.
Other Challenges - libraries can do handheld games, but hard to circ the small disks.
Eli: best way is to do events.
AADL -GT - Friday, Saturday and Sunday, different age ranges, once/month.
Video about AADL GT. - change in attitudes toward library staff and vice versa.
A short break while we play some games.
