One of the better known examples of gamification working in a library is Find the Future, a night-long event held at the New York Public Library on May 20th, 2011. The game involved 500 library clients getting into teams of 8 and searching the library for various objects within it's collection, each of which had an element of a story attached to them. There were 100 items in total and social media and technology in the form of mobile phones was used extensively through the course of the game (the game also has its own app which allowed library visitors outside the event itself to play their own version of the game). After the event was completed, a book entitled '100 Ways to Make History' was compiled from the players' efforts. The event was held as part of that libarys' 100th anniversary and gained a large amount of media attention.
Find the Future is an excellent example of gamification working in a library because it made use of many of the aspects of games to a positive outcome for everyone involved. It was heavily collaborative, and large in scope. It made use of the libraries resources in a creative way, resulting in information pull instead of push. It gained the library media attention, exposing the library to new audiences and also simultaneously reinventing itself for a new generation whilst using the resources it already had. It also resulted in an extension of the libraries' resources in the form of a book that was made through collaboration based on already existing resources. It's also a good example of how to layer gaming mechanics into an event and make them an integral part of one, instead of laying them over the top of something that isn't built as a game and trying to make it work. There were no scores in this event - it's possible there was a leaderboard and there would have been some sort of a schedule that it had to run to in order to be completed in time, but what the players were there for was the story they were creating, and the stories behind the objects - not to win against anyone else.
In 2008 the University of Michigan also gamified part of one of their courses involving Information Literacy. The game itself was a web-based board game called Defense of Hidgeon: The Plague Years, and combined the story of how a medieval-era town surviving the Black Plague with both on- and offline research methods for those playing. The ruleset was quite involved and the learning payoffs were staggered to introduce the characters to various tools that they could use to progress in the game, resulting in a high level of engagement. The game also worked well as an experiment in gamification as data was collected on play styles, overall engagement, and payoff in learning outcomes. A number of recommendations were given for gamification itself after the experiment had been completed.
Defense of Hidgeon is another good example of how to integrate game mechanics into a model for education and increase engagement without forcing players to deal with pointless gaming features that don't really count towards the task at hand. This example was more competitive than Find the Future, which is interesting because my initial feeling on gamification was that 'Cooperation meant sustained interest, but competition meant limited engagement'. I can't comment on whether or not Defense of Hidgeon would eventually have caused disengagement with the students who played it (indeed, some didn't engage at all), but it seems that for the time it was played, it provided a valuable learning experience. It's also interesting to note that throughout the course of playing the game, some events that the teachers planned interrupted the flow of the game, causing disengagement with some of the players. Though this did not sink the game, it was a large issue for the teachers. It seems to me that this is a good example of a 'tacked on' event that isn't properly integrated with the game mechanics/learning outcome symbiosis that I've been talking about.
The final example I'm going to discuss involving gamification of libraries is probably a little bit more 'gaming in libraries' than 'gamification of libraries', but I think it's still worth discussing - International Games Day. This yearly event takes place around the world and is organized by the American Library Association. It involves libraries operating as venues for clients to play games of all kinds, from computer games to board and puzzle games. The event attracts a lot of attention - despite an election being held at the same time and Hurricane Sandy disrupting many services in the Northeast of America, over 1000 libraries and 17 000 clients participated there. It also provides community-building between libraries themselves, with international games of Chinese Whispers and inter-library video game tournaments taking place as well.
International gaming day is a valuable concept to look at when discussing gamification of libraries. In addition to being an established resource and community, the fact that it is a library initiative that demonstrates the power of gaming in that setting can't be overlooked. This is gaming done right because it appeals to the masses; it shows how popular the concept is and shows that libraries can function as venues for it. It wouldn't be a big jump for libraries to start to integrate gaming and the traditional holdings together from this sort of event, given its success and huge scope. Though not of the same breed of gamification as Find the Future, International Gaming Day is its own entity, and that makes it a valid consideration for me as I progress from here.
These three examples all have different aspects that allow them to work in a library context. I think they demonstrate the diversity of the medium and the many applications that gaming could have for libraries, and this helps give me an idea of the scope of what I'm talking about here. In my next post, I'm going to think about a couple of the elements of games that allow them to work within a library setting.
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