13 January 9.00am How are you using games in your library/university/workplace? Do you run board game groups? Do you have console based games? How do you encourage people to mix and to play well with others? What ways could games be used in your library/university/workplace? This is a great opportunity to bring ideas along and have people help you develop them further. You might even find someone to collaborate with on your ideas.

Franticread: today will be a bit different to the usual talks, although they all seem to be different to each other as well. I think it would be a start if we all said who we are (if you are comfortable with that, and if not - no need to say who you are) and kind of where we work, then people can share how their libraries/workplaces are using games. Arqa was tweeting about some things happening in her place, so after we have all introduced outselves, parhaps Arqa can kick of the discussion..

Arqa: Sure

Franticread: after about 30 - 40 minutes we can move to a reading discussion about the amazing read (theme for this month on twitter reading group) [this did not happen because of the activity of the other discussion]

Ipomoea: happy to go last here, no gaming in my library or workplace, though I do have a few comments

Franticread: everyone will have different things happening, and ideas would also be great. I am Ellen Forsyth, and I work at the State Library of NSW. My work is with public libraries.

Arqa: I'm Sarah Thorneycroft, academic developer @ the University of New England

Reynârdine: BWS Johnson Consultant, Orc Slayer

Lilaea: I'm Kendra; I am a public librarian at the Larry J. Ringer Library in College Station, Texas; it's a public library

Ipomoea: I'm Mica, I'm a library officer at the University of Ballarat and patron at Ballarat public library...

Franticread: hey we have a broad range of places represented

Ipomoea: with me (RL) is Bri, library technician at Ballarat Clarendon College, Victoria, west of Melbourne

Franticread: So how about we hear from Arqa...about what is happening in her area

Arqa: Ok :) So what Frantic was referring to before was seeing me tweet about something called #unegamers. What this is is a gaming community project that we've started on campus. What happened was that towards the end of last year I was talking to one of our IT guys about our mutual Minecraft obsession, and he pointed out that it would actually be very easy to set up and run a campus-wide gaming server. This kickstarted a discussion about creating a gaming community to connect staff and students in ways that nothing else has really previously catered for. So we did :)

Ipomoea: that is a great idea

Arqa: While the server is still in the works, we started by creating a Facebook group, that within an hour had over 50 people joined up. The group is made up of all sorts of students (both on and off campus) and staff. Academic staff a bit low on the ground atm but that's par for the course ;) But we now have a WoW guild, and an SWTOR guild is in progress


Lilaea: how does that work with such a big group? I've only seen the building part of Minecraft, not whatever you would do with a group, and what is SWTOR?

Arqa: Ah - sorry :)

Reynârdine: Star Wars

Arqa: SWTOR = Star Wars, the Old Republic - another MMORPG. And Minecraft can work in any number of ways en masse - collaborative builds, creating virtual environments, scenarios etc etc massivelyminecraft.org is probably the best example of a Minecraft server in edu

We initially started the group ourselves - me, the aforementioned IT guy and our student support guy, but we've now 'handed' the group over to student admins so that the group is driven by students. They're now planning events for all sorts of things (Mario Kart tournaments etc).

What really excites me is the possibilities for student & staff interaction as equals rather than student-teacher or student-support relationships, as well as the ability to connect on and off campus students

Reynârdine: it's gotta be great for alumni, too

Arqa: Yup :)

Arqa: Once we get a server happening anyone from anywhere should be able to play via vpn

Franticread: sounds great

Reynârdine: <--- has a one track fundraising brain.

Arqa: Our plan is to serve games like Minecraft and Team Fortress, while the community can operate in whatever ways in the games we can't serve anyway

Ipomoea: took me a sec to link those Rey ... but I see it now :-)

Arqa: We're also plotting an O-Week event involving Minecraft IRL - diamond hunt :) Ultimately it's just a really nice example of what can happen with virtually no resources in a really short period of time. I'm excited about it :)

Ipomoea: O-week approaches... those plans must be mature

Arqa: I think you overestimate my ability to plan ahead :D

Lilaea: what's O-week?

Ipomoea: it is exciting just to hear about... it must be fantastic to be part of it

Arqa: It's Orientation week - the first week that students are on campus. Lots of activities to get students into uni life

Arqa: I say on campus - 80% of our students study via distance

Franticread: but the games may be a way to connect offsite students with other students on campus or in other offsite locations, games helping with the social mix elements

Arqa: Yes - one of the big issues is that off campus students are isolated socially as social activities tend to be centred on on campus students. In games, it doesn't matter. One of our #unegamers student admins is in Canada

Franticread: yes - just look at all the places we really are today - and yet we can be all at Ironforge

Arqa: Exactly.

Franticread: sounds a great initiative and obviously a well received one too..

Arqa: Another big thing is that games allow equal footing for teaching - off campus students generally just get recorded lectures. However, games for learning is going to be a much harder road to travel than social gaming :)

Lilaea: being able to "talk" real time is good

Franticread: it is

Lilaea: messageboards are also good; kind of in between recorded lectures and live talking

Reynârdine: moodle + mahara ftw.

Arqa: But - as our student support team says, something like 80% of the issues students have with university have nothing to do with academics, so providing social engagement avenues is still v. beneficial. Yeah - we run Moodle and Mahara, but there's something to be said for engaging in environments that are 'natural' to students - unit communities can feel a little forced and often have low participation rates

Lilaea: I don't know what Moodlw and Mahara are; the name Moodle sounds semi-familiar, but I can't place it

Franticread: sounds like #unehgamers is going really well already, it will be great to hear about later enhancements as well

Arqa: It's a learning management system. All universities tend to run them for providing online teaching

Lilaea: I think ours used Blackboard, which I think may have been bought by another company (can't remember which one, but it wasn't Moodle)

Reynârdine: ick

Arqa: I'm hoping we can get the server running in the not too distant future

Lilaea: ick for blackboard?

Reynârdine: aye

Arqa: Anyway, that's about all I've got to say about it at the moment - any questions?

Franticread: sounds brilliant

Ipomoea: would wish to be able to have our IT guys available to do similar projects, but you can't fix that for us :-)

Arqa: Talk to them - quite a few are probably gamers. Many here are and that's what helped us.

Lilaea: I'd wish our IT people would be less paranoid; I think they'd have security issues

Franticread: maybe some of the information about #unegamers will help other organisations too

Arqa: Well, re: the server, Ben has had to make a business case and discuss SLAs and so on, so there are considerations, but starting a community and using non-servable games has made it really easy to start

So even if your IT guys don't want a bar of it you can still get stuff happening

SLA= service level agreement, ie what are we going to guarantee we'll provide (uptime etc)

Ipomoea: good point... I could work with that idea... beginning in Facebook

Arqa: That's all we've done up til now really

Ipomoea: so so far it has been socialising for gamers

Arqa: What I want to try and do for the next little while is convince all the people who think they aren't gamers to get involved

Ipomoea: hooking up for gaming

Arqa: Like all the people who play Words with Friends, Farmville etc

Arqa: And yes @ Ipo :)

Franticread: so...who would like to tell us what is happening in their space?

Ipomoea: are you ready Lil?

Lilaea: sure, well, we're not doing a whole lot; I'm at a public library, and I mostly do programs for teens and tweens (pre-teens), we have a little bit of equipment (2 PS2's, and we just got a Wii; last summer, I borrowed a Wii)

Franticread: but is all a start...

Arqa: Wiis are awesome :)

Franticread: are you getting a good response from the community?

Lilaea: in the summer, I have a gaming day (well, couple hours); might try to expand that to at least once a month in the summer instead of just once in the summer, we also have a cabinet full of board games, and cards, chess, checkers. Sometimes we'll open our meeting room for games for teenagers - we're located across the street from a high school. This past summer, I also had a couple laptops and we had Minecraft on one (just the free version) and Animoto on another (not exactly a game, but sort of fit for gamemaking / video-making); we had a game-making afternoon too we had Gamemaker on one laptop; a couple of the kids were pretty good with it and since it's free, they were probably going to get their mom to let them download it to do more at home. We're looking to have some Wii and PS2 game sessions for adults too; the past few summers, we had game days mostly for adults (mostly senior citizens, but they stopped coming). Looking to find a way to get university kids to come to our stuff too. May place an ad in the school newspaper; there's a university here (that's why it's called College Station).

We participated in National Gaming Day; just had the room open; got some people, not a bunch, but we had had requests from the previous year

Arqa: Maybe have a chat to the uni and see if they have an FB presence - social media works wonders

Franticread: thanks Lilaea - sounds like there is interest, it is interesting that the seniors are playing less at the library

Lilaea: I know at least some of their clubs/groups have Facebook pages. I think some of the seniors got sick of leaving their homes, decided it was getting too hot or something. That and it was mostly a little group, so they may have had a tiff

A few times, we've just decided to show videos and have board games available and people who happened to be in the library decided to come in

Arqa: Rage quit? ;)

Ipomoea: ok
Franticread: Board games can be natural magnets

Ipomoea: I have to explain Rage quit to Bri

Reynârdine: heheheh

Lilaea: explain to me too

Arqa: Re: your seniors having a tiff. Rage quit is when you go 'bugger this I'm not playing any more!!'

Ipomoea: group activities in game... people annoy each other and someone quits in a huff

Lilaea: could be

Ipomoea: I like Arqa's explanation better :-)

Franticread: so Ipo and Bri what is happening with games in your area?

Ipomoea: University of Ballarat has 102 board games in Realia or Teacher Resource Collections, no video games or consoles; but I have rarely seen these circulate. Librarians are aware of other institutions' game approaches to librarian orientation, but that is al

Franticread: that is an impressive board game collection

Ipomoea: The university does have a pathway Certificate III - Bachelors in Multimedia & Game Design, but the library's supportive material is all textual - licences limit software to class computers. As far as I am aware there is no effort to collect or share student work. The board games - not social games - educational

We don't circulate any of our games either; they're just for library-hosted events, which , as you can imagine, is why they don't circulate... but yes Lil.. the games are not even used in the library. Some of the titles looked like they might be interesting. Iwill look more closely soon to see whether they are playable in a social sense at college - ie within shorter time brackets.

Graduate students and their supervisors experimented with Second Life a few years ago, and still have an island which is mostly used for graduate-supervisor meetings.
There have not been any librarians or support services involved. As the facade shows signs of neglect I've been (silently, voluntarily, amateurly) working up a proposal to refresh the island.

Franticread: they may not be - sometimes the focus on the education means they forget games should (mostly) be fun. I like the approach taken by Brian Mayer and Christopher Harris - first the game must be fun, then is it assessed for educational value

Ipomoea: That is my take on games too... as an unschooler for my own children. A cool game in that range is Scruples present ethical dilemmas and guess how each other would respond. Gets interesting with the "challenge" - when you have to convince the players that your target would respond to the ethical situation other than they claim. Scruples was a party game first and foremost

Arqa: The fun thing is why I'm much more interested in commercial games for learning rather than 'serious' games designed specificially for learning

Franticread: Ipomoea - thanks for that update - sounds like there are places to go, but other people need to be a bit willing about it too

Ipomoea: now for Bri at Ballarat and Clarendon College a local chess club meets at the library - but apart from providing the tables I do not believe the library is involved in facilitation - they certainly do not promote the meetings. Neither board games nor chess events are mentioned on the library's webs, no that was the public library.

At Ballarat and Clarendon College (senior campus) they have a chess club. The library has card decks and scrabble. No video or computer games, at the public library they do have a range of board games for use in the library - which can be seen at the circulation desk. I'm thinking either place could start with Facebook grouping. will be thinking lots more about that

Lilaea: do people check them out or leave their library card at the desk or something while they are using the games? I'm not sure... when I asked (my own kids are older now... the library didn't have any games at all when my kids were younger)... when I asked the library assistant didn't seem at all interested to give answers

Reynârdine: d'oh

Lilaea: that's not good

Ipomoea: I think I recall them being used mostly by after-school care or homeschoolers. Agreed... I expected a big smile , eyes showing thrill and "isn't it great"

Arqa: The problem with gaming is that the word comes with so much cultural baggage. So many people don't want to be associated with it. Even if it's only in reference to 'analog' games

Ipomoea: I wonder whether staff might get tired of checking pieces

Franticread: well - if you have games - you have to be positive about the service offered

Ipomoea: I once volunteered in a Toy Library - having to check pieces was very time-consuming and socially difficult - showing distrust almost

Lilaea: I can't imagine actually checking all the pieces; if you loan them out, you almost need to be willing to just let the pieces disappear

Reynârdine: ^

Arqa: Is it really much different to checking that books are still in good condition?

Lilaea: discard the item when you or a patron notices that too many are gone

Reynârdine: a lot allow for replacement pieces.

Ipomoea: that is what I figure - and get in a quantity of "spares" and include an insert that encourages patrons to simply let staff know if parts are missing so they can be replaced or substitutes found

Reynârdine: *nod* I agree Ip

Lilaea: I don't think we check books that closely; staff notice if there's a major problem but don't flip through every single page every time a book is returned

Franticread: Rey - do you have anything you want to talk about in regard games use? Rey is part of the first library guild to get to the max level in WoW..which is exciting

Reynârdine: :D

Ipomoea: that is exciting... bravo Rey

Arqa cheers!

Franticread: so it is great knowing that there are some exciting things happening in library related guilds

Ipomoea cheers at Reynârdine!

Reynârdine: let me know if you want to give me a slightly narrower topic, that way I don't say summat like "Games are bril and I <3 Kittens." ;)

Ipomoea: (had to show Bri how to cheer :-))

Ipomoea laughs at Reynârdine.

Franticread: well, how are you encouraging the use of games in your work?

Reynârdine: I don't do too much games consulting, I end up saddled with Innovation stuff more often but when I can put in a good word with folks that are *cough* reluctant adopters I do.

Franticread: that sounds great

Reynârdine: Chess is usually the way to go if you need to wedge your foot in the door

Lilaea: what if you don't know how to play chess?

Arqa: Or Angry Birds - I've had some luck w/ Angry Birds on a smartboard

Lilaea: just suggest they have chessboards available?

Reynârdine: I feel like writing summat on laddering people up to really cool stuff that people actually want to play XD. Chess is kind of like Unix, in general if you're a public someone someplace knows how to play it and is happy to show other people, there are clubs that spring up, and it's generally pretty easy to rope someone into teaching if one of the staff don't know stuff

Franticread: and the learning can be social as people help each other

Reynârdine: I agree on angry birds, yep prime example of over the shoulder learning

Arqa: For some reason even people who are totally anti are willing to fling a bird around

Lilaea: most people; my sister has something against that game, but she's also generally anti-tech

Reynârdine: there were yucky privacy things at one point. Did I satisfy folks' queries?

Arqa: A lot of people who hate particular games are a result of someone like their kids playing it what they deemed 'excessively'

Ipomoea: is angry birds social? can tell I haven't played?

Reynârdine: I wouldn't categorise it as,

Arqa: Not in game but you can build social around it.

Reynârdine: but watching over someone's shoulder and giggling is

Lilaea: I've mostly seen people play it on their phone or ipad

Ipomoea: so that is why the smartboard... I see. I'm wondering whether assisting in supporting the local chess club is a good place to practice / establish cred for game support?

Arqa: I've run meetings, conf sessions etc that have started w/ playing web-based AB on a big screen. So people have been social around it

Ipomoea: @Arq - so people take turns?

Arqa: Yup



Lilaea: we do have a large screen that we can hook up to a laptop or PS2; that draws some people in as an audience

Arqa: Often people who aren't willing to play are willing to watch

Lilaea: when someone plays Guitar Hero, others seem interested in watching

Reynârdine: aye

Franticread: sounds good - and a way for people to see the game, and enjoy it that way

Reynârdine: or dance dance revolution, lots of vicarious games. There was a New England event that had guitar hero and it was awesome.

Arqa: I assume you don't mean *my* New England?

Reynârdine: I believe I do, actually

Arqa: b/c that would suck if it happened and I didn't know about it

Reynârdine: it was years ago

Arqa: Ah ok

Ipomoea: Bri asks your opinion on Grand Theft Auto

Lilaea: heh; I won't be brining that to any teen events; pretty sure we'd get complaints

Ipomoea: her dad plays - and he doesn't know how to use a computer, but knows how to bash up cop cars in the game, we're thinking of it as good for a cross-generational activity

Reynârdine: oooh prolly

Lilaea: I'm sure for some things you could include all ages, but you'd need permission slips and/or the parents to actually be there

Franticread: we are looking at d&d for that, with a public librarian I am organising a training day which will also link public libraries to university games groups who have the skills and interests..

Lilaea: d&d would be good, but I thought that it's supposed to normally take a long time to play (longer than we normally set aside for programs)

Ipomoea: sounds Good Frantic

Franticread: we have not done anything like this before, so will be interested to see how it goes. I think it depends on how it is played...

Reynârdine: good luck! I hate seeing how fragmented things get.

Franticread: plus can be like a series of events

Ipomoea: Bri says that with d&D you can stop at any point , save, and come back later, so it would be an ongoing event

Lilaea: so we could do it if we had recurring events

Franticread: and a way of encouraging repeat visits to library, partnerships with university games groups will be critical for some libraries, and not for others

Reynârdine: don't underestimate some of the possibilities with board gaming for that, too. Anything that has set pieces at set places can be picked up any time and enjoyed at a distance.

Franticread: yes - I think this is an area more libraries can keep exploring

Franticread: I have been asked to do an introduction to WoW for library workers (a lunch time session at a conference where I am also talking about an evaluation of these talks which some of you helped with

Arqa: Conceptual introduction or hands-on?

Franticread: conceptual

Arqa: If it helps I've blogged a bit about my experience as a learner in WoW

Franticread: it is 15 minutes at a conference lunch break - so I have been taking library screen shots. I want library workers to go away thinking that mmogs are one possible way that libraries can engage with their communities (in my other presentation I will be also getting them to see the location for prof dev as well). I just don't want people to automatically rule out games, but also to recognise that many of them are already keen social gamers and so there is a continum

Ipomoea: so would the guy who wrote about his WoW experience getting him his job be useful?

Franticread: yes that kind of thing - but I also want them to see the fun of the world and the stories within the world

Arqa: DKs and worgen are brilliant for showing narrative

Lilaea: probably should mention that they can play starter version for free; too bad it still doesn't allow you to join guilds, so you don't really get the whole experience

Franticread: okay - we have gone a bit over time (but it is always seems to work out well)

Reynârdine: overtime is awesome

Ipomoea: it is hard to imagine convincing someone of fun if they don't already see it

Arqa: Yeah - what else do you do on a Friday morning? :)

Ipomoea: sleep!

Arqa: Can be done - a year and a half ago I thought gaming (and particularly WoW) was complete bollocks and didn't want a bar of it

Franticread: Next up in early March (1 March in USA/Canada) 2 March Australia we have Matt Forbeck -writer and game designer. Matt was suggested by Liz Danforth, and I have had a lot of fun reading one of his novels - which was based in a game world

Reynârdine: sounds great

Lilaea: I think you really have to try it to see if you think it's fun; hearing about a game just kind of gets you interested, but it's not the same as playing it yourself

Ipomoea: my sons find youtube videos great for getting my agreement on games, a mash up of youtube vids could work?

Franticread: You tube might be an option for me to think about too - as it will show game action (just have to learn a lot of new skills in about 3 weeks)

I really enjoyed hearing from all of you today about the exciting things happening in your areas - and the possibilities you are aiming for too


Ipomoea: I appreciate hearing great ideas from people making progress