Now that I’ve checked
out some of the literature on the topic of gameful libraries and done a basic
analysis on the topic, I am going to dip into the fun bit of the project and
posit some recommendations, based on the information I’ve explored. These will
both be aimed at individual libraries who want to explore the concept of
gamification, and at the wider situation concerning the information landscape
that both libraries and games of all kinds exist in. These recommendations are
intended more as a bit of general advice from an outsiders’ point of view – for
want of a better term, from a CUP’s (Client/User/Players) point of view. I’m
including them here because of the oft-mentioned reluctance of libraries to
adopt gaming properly and in its’ own right.
Research research
research
Given that the library
is an information-based entity, this should be paramount to libraries looking
to increase engagement through gamification. It would be remiss of such an
entity to be assumptive about what users want and need out of any project that
involves them. The applications of the concept of gamification are vastly
diverse – even in regard to games themselves, gamification is only one aspect
of them that libraries might find useful. I find Jane McGonigals’ term
‘becoming gameful’(2011) to be more inclusive of the variety of
activities an organization might undertake in regard to games, and this also
demonstrates that there is a great amount of potential here that libraries need
to be made aware of.
Think creatively about
your resources
This recommendation
covers two aspects of gameful libraries – first is the cost mitigation that
comes from utilizing what’s there already. We aren’t talking about building a
gaming-based organization from the ground up here (though the library might
become this in the future) – the organization is already established, and it
operates in essentially the same industry as does gaming. There are synergies
present that can be exploited with a fairly minimal effort of thought, and this
would increase the appeal of the concept to libraries for whom outlay is a barrier
to participation. It should be noted that according to Ahmed El-khuffash, most
‘pure gamification’ systems are free (p.25), further reducing the possibility of expending
money on something that won’t work in the long run.
The second reason I’m
recommending creative thinking is a fairly simple one – to put it bluntly, it
will help librarians get a greater understanding of the potential and nature of
gaming, apart from the regulated and quantified environment the library seems
to reinforce. Another aspect of this environment that I’ve observed comes in
the form of librarians acting as facilitators of information provision and not
as users of information themselves – they seem more concerned with giving their
CUPs venues and means to play games than actually doing it themselves. This is
fine, as not every librarian is going to want to become a Dungeon Master (2008)or go for a high score on Halo (even though there’s a level called The Library in the original game) (2013) , but it will help librarians gain more of an
understanding about the concept if they give their own imaginations a bit of a
workout and allow themselves to play with the resources they caretake. This
echoes what I’ve said in other posts about utilizing the vast knowledge base
that the library has to its’ full extent – sometimes the uses for those
resources might not always be evident on first inspection. One of the keys to
gamifying properly is having the librarians on the same page as their CUPs –
both literally and figuratively.
Don’t be afraid of
making mistakes
This is another one of
those ‘no-brainer’ points that I keep making, but yet again, it seems to be
something that everyone forgets about. I’d even posit that this recommendation
could be applied to companies who produce games as well – everyone seems so
worried about putting a foot wrong that they fail to capitalize on
opportunities and concepts for fear of being castigated by their audience. The
analogy that keeps coming to mind is that of the older person who wants to play
with the precocious preteen, but is more prepared to denigrate the youngsters’
computer as silly and pointless than actually learn how to do anything with it
for fear of seeming ignorant or doing something wrong. The problem is that the
youngster doesn’t care about whether anyone looks silly or not – they’re just
happy that their elder is taking an interest in what they’re doing. It needs to
be the same way with instituting a gamification project.
The concept is huge
and diverse and still finding its’ feet in places other than the entertainment
industry, thanks to technology – gaming companies themselves still make serious
missteps in regards to what their audiences want. In that sector, a bad enough
mistake can sink a company, but it isn’t necessarily so with libraries – it’s
an excellent tool, but it’s not the lifeblood of the industry. In choosing to
leverage the concept and doing it well, we open ourselves up to the possibility
of increased engagement with a fairly low risk. I can’t see any libraries being
closed down because of a failed gamification project any time soon.
The point here is that
it seems better to make mistakes honestly and work to improve where the project
falls down, instead of making timid mistakes and deflecting responsibility
because we might get laughed at. The whole idea with gamification is that the
consequences of in-game actions are removed to create a play space to explore
ideas. This needs to be echoed in the implementation itself, because no project
that is reliant on customer engagement and input will ever go 100% to plan.
Understand that gaming
isn’t frivolous
This follows on from
my last recommendation quite closely, and also applies more to the library industry
as a whole rather than individual organizations (though it certainly applies to
them as well). There seems to be quite a large disconnect between the concept
of gaming and the idea that learning can take place in contexts other than
formally learning about something. I learned to touch type in chatrooms, and a
large part of my learning to read and write involved fiction and my own time.
The internet abounds with examples of people learning and creating things in
informal learning environments, and there’s not a classroom or library in sight.
Libraries are
extremely well-grounded institutions, and it’s completely understandable that they
would want to extend that grounding into a concept like gaming before they
engaged with it fully. The problem, it seems, lies in the fact that evidence is
already there to support the theory that there’s more to gaming than just
killing time and escapism, but it’s been mired under the natural tendency
towards rules and control that more formal organizations prefer. In those
formal environments, the concept is still problematic and treated with
suspicion, or not utilized to its’ full potential, whilst outside of them it is
enjoying resounding success as technology increases its’ accessibility and
appeal meteorically. I’m not trying to take over the gaming industry here, nor
convert the library one to another outlet for gaming. I want libraries to get a
cut of the action, and if we regarded gaming as a serious arena for both
creative and constructive knowledge transactions, then that cut is all but
granted.
Take yourselves less
seriously
Hand in hand with
taking games more seriously goes the idea that libraries need to take
themselves less so. Games aren’t just for kids any more, but libraries have
always been places for people from all walks of life to come and enhance their
knowledge in myriad ways. It’s a place that caters to a basic human need to
know more. Catering to that need has made the library something of a lynchpin
in modern society, and throughout history, that role has gained a certain
amount of solemnity and seriousness about it. As the information landscape
changes to a more participatory culture, the old incarnation of libraries is
being outmoded and there seems to be a degree of defensiveness about guarding
that older role.
This isn’t to say that
libraries are completely worthless and anti-progress in the modern age – in a
number of fields the library has been a leading innovator and undergone rapid
evolutions (such as the popularisation of online courses) (2013). From what I’ve seen, however, most of these
evolutions have taken place on the libraries’ terms, grudgingly and only to
preserve it’s place in the order of things. They should be taking place for the
users, to extend their knowledge and allow them to do more – it’s always been
them describing the libraries role anyway. I keep coming back to the analogy of
the youngster sharing leisure time with the senior citizen – all of the concern
about loss of dignity and status is on the part of the elder, established
party, when the younger one only cares about how that elder can best provide
service to them. The point I’m trying to make is in order to engage in
meaningful play, you’ve got to be able to loosen up.
Play nice together
This recommendation is
directed more towards the various parties at play here – not just the
libraries. To them, I say that gamification is one that is fundamentally at
odds with how structured and regulated your organizations are, and that you
need to be prepared for a certain amount of upset to your established ecosystem
to achieve the significant payoffs that it has in store for you.
The gaming industry
also needs to be mindful of the conventions and potential present in libraries.
They offer a huge amount of reference material, inspiration, and pre-assembled
user base that hasn’t yet been utilized or satisfied, but they aren’t inert
shells. They’re rich ecosystems that have withstood the test of time and are in
a state of flux, which gaming can help provide a direction in. The mutual
benefit is huge, but the relationship needs to be symbiotic instead of
parasitic. With the gaming industry formally acknowledging the value of the
library sector, that sort of relationship can become a reality.
Respect informal
learning spaces
Finally, I would like
to recommend another idea be consciously considered when undertaking
gamification – that of informal learning spaces being left alone. Libraries
function very well as both formal and informal learning spaces, as Marchionini
and Maurer (1995) discuss. The library (in particular, the
digital library) is also very well equipped to break down barriers between
those two demarcations with the overall goal being to enhance knowledge
transfer.
The consideration that
informal learning spaces need to remain inviolate is relevant to the concept of
gamification because the library is a formalized environment, whilst games are
inherently informal. The need for the organization to control and quantify the
effects of its’ knowledge might end up overriding that informality and moving
away from the user-centred design that I’ve talked about in the past, resulting
in gamification which ends up serving the organization more than the user. It’s
easy to envision a library winding down the number of gaming events it holds
and putting its efforts into a point based game involving how many books users
check out because of a more direct benefit to the organization, for example.
The basic point is
that the library can’t actively lead the user in an informal environment – the
users guide themselves. Being informal environments that are still beholden to
the rules of the library, it would be all too easy for the concept of gaming to
become formalized enough to lose that freedom that makes it so appealing.
I realize that these
recommendations are probably a lot more general than specific – they’d work for
any project that any organization wanted to undertake. Some of these even felt
a bit like I was writing life advice, they were so broad and theoretical, but
here’s the point – gaming is a fairly broad concept in itself, and libraries
are readily established organizations. It’s not even a particularly new concept
that I’m proposing here, but it does seem to suffer from a bit of overanalysis
in its’ current form. At this point in time, having only engaged with the
theoretical and conceptual entities of gaming and libraries, this is my view of
the issue – I hope that it’s not so simple as to be useless. I also hope that these
recommendations help to provide a jumping off point for dealing with
integration of gaming into libraries. I’m going to follow this post up with a
reflection of what I’ve done so far, seeing as I’m coming to the end of the
university based part of my education on this subject. Thanks for reading.
References:
Dungeons and Dragons at the Library |
GeekDad | Wired.com. (n.d.). GeekDad. Retrieved October 30, 2013, from
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2008/09/dungeons-and-dr/
gamification_report.pdf.
(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.el-khuffash.com/gamification/gamification_report.pdf
GDC
Vault - We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Badges: How to Re-invent Reality Without
Gamification [SGS Gamification]. (n.d.). Retrieved October 30, 2013, from
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014576/We-Don-t-Need-No
Libraries
Lead the Way: Open Courses, Open Educational Resources, and Open Policies.
(n.d.). Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources.
Retrieved October 30, 2013, from
http://oerconsortium.org/2013/09/19/libraries-lead-the-way-open-courses-open-educational-resources-and-open-policies/
The
Library. (n.d.). Halo Nation. Retrieved October 30, 2013, from
http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/The_Library
Therolesofdigitallibrariesinteachingandlearning.pdf.
(n.d.). Retrieved from
http://cpe.njit.edu/dlnotes/CIS/CIS350/Therolesofdigitallibrariesinteachingandlearning.pdf
