16 September 9.00am (Australian Eastern Standard Time) Brian Mayer and Christopher Harris authors of
Libraries got game : aligned learning through modern board games talked about the importance of board games for educational purposes, giving ideas which you can use in your library. You can read Brian Meyer's blog Library gamer as a great way of gaining new ideas. Christoper Harris is a 2008 Library Journal Mover and Shaker, read his blog Infomancy and follow him on twitter. Towards the end of this transcript are some great ideas for board games you can use in schools and libraries.

Franticread (Ellen Forsyth): Welcome to this talk today - I only just realised that they have been going for a year

Reyn√¢rdine: hooray :D

Hiemal (Liz Danforth): over, isn't it? June last year?

Franticread (Ellen Forsyth): Shawn McCann spoke in September last year, following from the June seminar

Hiemal (Liz Danforth): ahhh

Franticread (Ellen Forsyth): so that is exciting

Stefwynn (Mylee Joseph): It's a great effort ... a whole year!

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)Congratulations

Reyn√¢rdine: very high quality talks, too

Franticread (Ellen Forsyth): My name is Ellen Forsyth and I work at the State Library of NSW, I am thrilled that we will be hearing from Brian Mayer and Christopher Harris today

Gamr (Christopher Harris): I am Chris

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer) Hi I am Brian

Franticread (Ellen Forsyth): I was very excited to actually meet Christopher in New Orleans when I was on holidays earlier this year - we were at the same event

Gamr (Christopher Harris): So modest, Ellen. At the LJ Movers and Shakers event.

Franticread (Ellen Forsyth): so how about we hear from Brian and Christopher

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Okay. I am going to kick off with a brief overview of what we do and then Brian is going to go into some details on how we do it.

So we work at the Genesee Valley School Library System, a New York state funded agency that is part of the Genesee Valley Educational Partnership, an educational services consortium that supports 22 very small, very rural districts in western New York (near Buffalo and just a few hours south of Toronto, Canada), we have 22 districts, but only about 25,000 students....so very small schools but we are there to support the libraries

About 3 years ago, we started a library of modern board games as a service for our districts. Modern board games, being defined here as that new, European style board game like Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, or Settlers of Catan to name a few more mainstream ones. We went with board games for a couple of reasons that Brian will touch on further, but one of the main reasons was that as the director, I didn't want to get off to a bad start. I didn't want the game library to die before it had a chance to prove itself.

Board games have a happy aura about them...so many people have fond memories of childhood board games. So we avoided the possible stigma of video games and went with the classic. But you better believe that we didn't touch Dungeons and Dragons with a ten foot pole. Kind of like an Orc....better to just hit them with arrows. Pew Pew FTW! err....did I say orc? I meant troll!

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer) We are starting to look towards other RPG setting though.

Gamr (Christopher Harris): So we started a game library and now have a couple hundred titles that have been aligned with our state and national curriculum standards as well as library standards for school libraries and here I am going to turn it over to Brian to talk about alignment and collection development

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)Thanks

Gamr (Christopher Harris): then I will talk more about how libraries use the games

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)So we didn't have a model to follow when we began. There were not a lot of places utilizing modern games we began to research and look for what games were well loved. Over the course of the first year we developed a collection development policy and a large OOPS shelf

Gamr (Christopher Harris): lots of oopsies

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)Currently our policy for collection is as follows:
FIRST, the game must be a game

Stefwynn (Mylee Joseph): when is a game not a game?

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)excellent question, we look to games designed by game designers

Gamr (Christopher Harris): flick the spinner and do the worksheet that comes up style "educational games" [are not games]

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)not attempts to hammer curriculum with a weak game mechanic attached, the power that comes from utilizing games is the inherent fun the illicit, the powerful intrinsic motivation they provide to engage the students with the content and skills that are incorporated in them, that is the second part of selection.

First we look for good games, then we look to see where the alignment lies, Third, we look at time. We don't discount longer games, in fact some of out best games are longer games that span several days of instruction, but they are also the most immersive and valuable

Gamr (Christopher Harris): e.g. 1960: The Making of the President, Power Grid, Dominant Species

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)Lastly we balance everything with a game's return on investment that is how much time does a teach or school librarian need to spend introducing, setting up and guiding the students through a successful game experience and how much value are they getting out of that as a resource. We still make mistakes when selecting games, just less of them

Gamr (Christopher Harris): In the end, our goal is to treat the games as just another curriculum-aligned library resource. And I think that has been the secret to our success. Games have been a part of schools for a long time but in small cases

Stefwynn (Mylee Joseph): Do you need to play a game to be able to assess it for the collection?

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)Yes

Gamr (Christopher Harris): individual teachers or classrooms, not a systemic approach

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)oh the pain of our lunches, testing games

Hiemal (Liz Danforth): what a hard life

Gamr (Christopher Harris): We have taken a systeming approach to gaming that allows us to introduce it at the administrative/curriculum level

Gamr (Christopher Harris): So I go present to principals, curriculum directors, even superintendents. I am a tough boss about games at lunch. By which I mean I win a lot

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)And i push into classrooms working with teachers and students helping them incorporate the games into lessons, modifying to fit instruction which is important

Gamr (Christopher Harris): One of the great things we have been doing for the past year is pushing in for special education classes using games as a way to help them still have complex, inquiry based, critical thinking experiences that are language independent. Which also works well for our English Language Learner populations. Many modern board games are designed for international release, and so they are great for multiple language classes or for those with language problems

Stefwynn (Mylee Joseph): so games in public libraries that have very multicultural populations should work well too?

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)I put together a bundle of our document for you to look at, print out and share http://bitly.com/gamealignment

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Many games have rules in many different languages and then the game pieces/cards/boards/etc. tend to use pictograms so there can be a single international version with definitions for the pictures in the rules. You can also look to http://boardgamegeek.com as the largest board game community online. They have translations for many more games including cheat sheets, cards, etc.

Even though modern board games are starting to gain traction in the US and other countries, Germany is still the home of these new board games. So many new games are released there first and we end up having to find translations

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)Though many games are now coming from the US. In fact a US title just won the Spiel des Jahres which is the German Family Game of the Year. Like the Newberry for games. Quirkle was the game


Hiemal (Liz Danforth): Quirkle is awesome

Gamr (Christopher Harris): So two big steps forward from our program: 1) We have administrative buy-in. Superintendents and principals call me to ask why their teachers and librarians are NOT gaming

and 2) We have raised awareness with the game publishers who are actually thinking now about gaming for learning menaing board games as well as video games

And that has led to the really cool path we are just starting down

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)Another direction we are heading that of game design

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Brian is designing a game of his own, and has worked with some of our schools on game design, only tell them more =)

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)I have started working with classroom teachers and school librarians

Hiemal (Liz Danforth): Have either of you run into the information coming out about Storybricks yet? (This is Liz Danforth, btw)

Reyn√¢rdine: are you working with the Strong Museum of Play?

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Oh, hi there Liz! We have done some things with the Strong (they are about 30 minutes away from us). We need to do more

Reyn√¢rdine: (I realise this ;)

Hiemal (Liz Danforth): That's very convenient!

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)I haven't had a chance to explore storybricks yet

Reyn√¢rdine: how about syr.edu?

Gamr (Christopher Harris): yes, we have done a great deal with Scott Nicholson

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)We work with Scott Nicholson often

Gamr (Christopher Harris): He actually got us started on the board games

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)He was the seed to your empire, our empire even

Gamr (Christopher Harris): I would like to work with the Strong to create a larger archive of board games. Nobody really collects them in an organized library/archive that I know of

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)We are currently starting a collection of award winning games

Gamr (Christopher Harris): But they get printed in small runs and then are gone

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)So we have to find creative ways to pick up out of print titles

Reyn√¢rdine: find Rich Odin, and you shall find the oop board games, grasshopper.

Gamr (Christopher Harris): /track Rich Oden

Gamr (Christopher Harris): hmm....didn't show up on the minimap

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)But game design has been a successful way of providing students an opportunity to show mastery of content in a new and very creative way

Franticread (Ellen Forsyth): I like the archive idea - and it would be great if they could still be played - like other games at The Strong

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Playable archive is really important, but we had a game go out to a third grade classroom (8 year olds) and come back just totally destroyed

Franticread (Ellen Forsyth): that is the challenge

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)Yup. We have very little destruction of the resources though, much less than we would have thought

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Impossible to find here, so we have to do an order from Germany to replace it. And we will, since it was a Kinderspiel des Jahres...kids game of the year

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)There is a great deal of respect usually amongst the students because the resource is so fun and engaging

Gamr (Christopher Harris): One of the ideas we have shared with some publishers is a library binding version of games, as board games pick up in public libraries, I think there could be a market for them, more durable game boards/pieces and interchangable parts wherever possible

Stefwynn (Mylee Joseph): Are board games publishers nervous about electronic versions of their games stealing some of their market? (eg. smaller print runs)

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)I don't think we are on their radar enough yet though for that to be a consideration

Elvabelle: I used to work in the toy library here and I was constantly photocopying tokens for games

Gamr (Christopher Harris): I wish we had more toy libraries and a better network for them here in US. American Library Association doesn't even know they exist really

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)No they are not. In fact many are embracing having iOS versions of their games created

Reyn√¢rdine: diff markets

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Actually, Rey, same markets in many cases

Consider a game like Puerto Rico...great board game, but tons of bits

Reyn√¢rdine: I disagree

Elvabelle: our TL is great, but it's focused on the under 12s

Gamr (Christopher Harris): the iPad is seeing huge overlaps of board gamers and board gamers on the iPad in a way that the xbox arcade versions didn't cross the bridge

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)What will be exciting to see is the crossover with hybrids

9/16 09:16:29.624 |Hchannel:GUILD|h[Guild]|h L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)of board/iOS game experiences

Elvabelle: have you looked at 3d printing services to replace bits?

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Elvabelle, we keep thinking about that. We have a 3D printer in our larger organization actually. Need to get some high school students to run the CAD designs for us

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)But we have been very fortunate that most game publishers will send replacement bits

Elvabelle: the product is good

Reyn√¢rdine: BOCES ftw

Gamr (Christopher Harris): any other questions?

Owlcatraz: what sort of budget would you put on a gaming collection per year?
Gamr (Christopher Harris): We spend about $2,000 or so

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)But $1000 will be a sizeable collection. We started on $500

Gamr (Christopher Harris): But you can get started rather nicely for about $250 even

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)The great thing is that that is straight content, no hardware

Franticread (Ellen Forsyth): what are your top five most playable board games? with a short learning curve?

Stefwynn (Mylee Joseph): You mentioned the OOPS choices - what are the traps people should look out for when purchasing games?

Gamr (Christopher Harris): top 5 playable games. I would suggest one called Forbidden Island

Elvabelle: We're just starting up an inhouse BG collection for teens. Starting with the classics. Love some suggestions for other areas to go in

Gamr (Christopher Harris): It is a cooperative game, so everyone plays together agaist the game but it is not easy

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)Forbidden Island is excellent selection, it is easy to learn but hard to win

Gamr (Christopher Harris): very quick to learn, but have to think and plan hard

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer) Telestrations it is a mix of pictionary and the telephone game, HI LAR I OUS

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Telestrations is TONS of fun, works in groups of 8 even, uh oh...3 more

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)I used to recommend werewolf and still do, teens love it. But a new favorite would be the Resistance. It takes the mistrust and betrayal of the Battlestar Galactica Games and boils it down to a 20 Minute play experience

Gamr (Christopher Harris): I would add Hive

Elvabelle: any interesting games come out of GenCon?

(Christopher Harris): Hive is sort of a rethinking of chess...very organic

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)And please do check out Parlsey games for a wonderful and fun Group game experience

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Parsley does live action text adventure game which are great for large groups. Flaming Goat is a great starter one

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)http://bit.ly/nrwpSq Link to the Parlsey games

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Actually, that would even work on here I bet

Franticread (Ellen Forsyth): they all sound great - and live action text adventure a must add for the National Year of Reading in Australia next year

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Once Upon a Time

9/16 09:24:21.007 [2. Trade] Lafey: I'm just too hot for you to handle Aeinae

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)Word on the Street

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Word on the Street is good

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)Linguistic tug of war

Gamr (Christopher Harris): adults like it

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)it is awesome

Franticread (Ellen Forsyth): thanks for all those suggestions/ideas

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)So oops

Gamr (Christopher Harris): So the other question, yeah

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)to avoid oops, read and learn what you can about the game before you pick it up

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Buy one copy first and play it, before buying multiple copies

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)boardgamegeek.com has the rules to most games

Elvabelle: just wondering what the noise factor is for some of these games? eg I wont put jenga into the collection because of the noise associated with it and I got told don't add risk unless I want to see the kids throwing the board at each other

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Go to your local game store if you have one

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)you can read the rules first before picking up a game

Gamr (Christopher Harris): They tend to be really helpful and give discounts sometimes =)

Some games are noisy

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)I know games are very expensive comparatively in Australia

Gamr (Christopher Harris): If you want noisy, go for Snorta!

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)NOISY LIBRARIES ARE OK

Dancing Eggs by Haba is fantastic for loud fun

Elvabelle: For those in Sydney 'Ventura Games' have competitive prices

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)awesome thanks elvabelle

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Telestrations is a noisy game because it is so much fun and so involved. Lots of our game play at lunch gets noisy just because we are so engaged, but for more quiet games, look for strategy, not tactics longer term game play

There is a game called No Thanks! Simple card game where you don't want to collect cards. But you have to use chips to avoid cards so tends to keep you quiet as you try to psych out opponents

Reyn√¢rdine says: so it's like cataloguing?

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Problem with quiet, is we could suggest a number of games where you end up playing mutual solitaire. Domionion is an example of that Award winning game based on card drafting to build a deck, kind of like magic, but the game is building the deck as you play but there is little interaction between players, so you tend to keep heads down and just play individually even though you are at a table together

Elvabelle: gong back to prev question did anything new out of GenCon catch your attention?

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Brian was there...

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Still checking out some of the stuff he brought back

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)Ahhh. I loved GenCon and I am excited about a few titles coming out. Are you looking for good games or good alignment>?

Elvabelle: games like small world? wondering if those games are suitable

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)for the school or public?

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Small world could work in a public library, though there are an awful lot of bits for it

Elvabelle: for public

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)Ahhh.


Elvabelle: but happy to hear your ideas

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)So. I am excited about a few things that would be well liked, Quarriors takes the card drafting mechanic of Dominion and does it with dice. Fast fun and addictive

Gamr (Christopher Harris) says: We almost bought multiple copies of Dominant Species because it was the cheapest way to get 100 colored wooden cubes

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)They are already lining up an expansion

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Quarriers should draw in the Yu-Gi-Oh type crowd

Elvabelle: maybe also the magic gathering crowd?

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)Yes. For more of a think, I picked up Ninjato

Elvabelle: magic is still very strong

Gamr (Christopher Harris): For Magic, look at Thunderstone

Elvabelle: very easy to organise games

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Card drafting, so plays like a CCG without the need to buy cards

Elvabelle: thunderstone has great reviews

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)No look to Ascension

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Is Ascension out in physical?

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)It was designed by two MTG ex pros

Gamr (Christopher Harris): LOVE it on iPad

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)started that way, they made an ipad app after the fact

Ascension Chronicles of the Godslayer

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Very nice game

Reyn√¢rdine: why do you think people don't design games in parallel formats in this day and age?

Gamr (Christopher Harris): They are starting to. There have been a couple of iPad first board games

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)Yes, Michael Schadt's Gold was released simultaneously on iOS and analog

Gamr (Christopher Harris): And, as iPad programming gets easier, that is a great way to build up for a print run

Elvabelle: we have 3 new ipads for library use

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Small world on iPad

Elvabelle: so theres an idea for gaming

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)Renier Knizia, a prolific game desinger has been making a strong switch to digital games with Facebook and iOS titles

Elvabelle: cool

Gamr (Christopher Harris): iPad board games are nice because they are usually multi-player

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)And in many cases the games are still multiplayer you still have the face to face social interactions

Elvabelle: and potentially a cool draw card

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Scrabble for iPad uses iPhones or iPod Touches for the tile holder

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)just the management, scoring, rules and bits are handled by the device

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Did we catch all the questons in there?

Elvabelle: cool idea hadn’t thought of that

9/16 09:38:32.425 You are no longer Away.

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)OOOO Fortune and Glory

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Yes, that is why I became a librarian, your point?

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)Great Experience game based on the old cliffhanger serials

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Someone mentioned starting a collection of classics. One thing I would caution. Classics have nice nostalgic appeal but the games we are talking about are very different. They are grounded in critical thinking for the most part...they require actual choices and decisions, not just rolls of dice

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)Monopoly, sadly is a very bad game

Gamr (Christopher Harris): So they end up appealing more to the expectations of modern gamers

Elvabelle: because we're starting from scratch I asked the kids what they wanted and they told me: chess, checkers, scrabble, cluedo, monopoly, uno

Hiemal (Liz Danforth): agreed, Lobo

√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)no choice other than to buy and that answer is always yes.

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Because they don't know what else is out there for board games

Elvabelle: They want something they can chill with for 20 minutes then get back into studying, after I get the collection established and more budget I'm going to get more interesting titles

(Christopher Harris): There are games for that in our collection...we call them study hall games

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)there are lots of great short play experiences that offer that but with more think and fun

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)7 Wonders is a great example, up to 7 players in 30 minutes

Gamr (Christopher Harris): Our site is http://sls.gvboces.org/gaming

Elvabelle: idea to make them aware of whats out there

Gamr (Christopher Harris): We will try and remember to make a list of our study hall games, thanks for all the great questions!

L√∏b√∏: (Brian Mayer)Yes you have all been fantastic. Thanks so much for asking us to share with you

Elvabelle: I also need to think of the space we have, as the games in the toy library can't be played in the library

(Liz Danforth): glad you were here, Lobo, Gamr (Christopher Harris)

Reyn√¢rdine: I have an announcement, google badges and MacArthur Foundation, it's cheevos for real life http://tiny.cc/dtvq4 and there is $ in it, also it is open to international participation they went out of their way to clarify that


Franticread (Ellen Forsyth): This idea from Reynardine is well worth exploring - sounds really interesting, thanks so much Christopher and Brian - really great

Liz is featured in Wow Insiders 15 minutes of fame http://tiny.cc/1ahec the second part went live today http://tiny.cc/1ahec and if you missed the first part there is a link
Hiemal (Liz Danforth): it went up during this talk...

Franticread (Ellen Forsyth): this is really exciting - and a great credit to all Liz's amazing work

Hiemal (Liz Danforth): I wanted to run around in circles, but respect Chris and Brian too much :)

Everyone congratulated Liz

Franticread (Ellen Forsyth): and the next speaker in this series...is Crystle Martin of the Popcosmo research group