Gaming and Libraries

I'm a bit disappointed because I lost some of my notes. Here is the first 2/3 of Jenny's talk~

Jenny Levine

Gaming – not just Nintendo, not just teenage boys in the basement

• 90 million people up to age 35 (compared to Boomers who number 77 million)
• average age of the game is 33 years old
• largest group of online games – middle-aged women

Examples:
• Guitar Hero
• Dance Dance Revolution – very popular for women wanting exercise
• Nintendo Wii – new type of gaming; has opened up the world of gaming
o Families are playing together
o Seniors are playing e.g. bowling
o Those with physical issues can now bowl

Gamers – characteristics
• Organized
• Make decisions quickly
• Distrust of bosses (bosses are the villain they beat in the game)
• They learn a lot from games – physics, words, planning their next moves
• They expect rewards

Different types of services
• Collection development
o Mario Brothers Memorial Librarian
o Gaming Target
• Support materials for the culture of gaming
o E.g. gaming night for families @ImaginOn
o Orange Country Library System http://www.ocls.info/gaming - have a whole blog devoted just to gaming; allow kids post game reviews that get posted;
o www.myspace.com/gamerspryte (?)
o collections of older games so people can study them
• Reader Advisory
o Instead of asking what movie they like, ask what games they like
o Games have different genres
o Can determine what kind of books they will like by the type of game they will like.
• Non-video games
o E.g. hungry hungry hippos, Cranium
o Geocaching – you put something in a place and post the GPS coordinates on a website and someone finds it and puts something in its place – just a big scavenger hunts
• Open play
o Have the kids bring in their games
o Some libraries are offering tournaments after school e.g. Dance Dance Revolution
o You get interesting groupings of kids who would not normally be seen together
• Blog
o Teen blog about gaming – kids comment and interact every day
o Ann Arbor District Library
o Kids love it so much they have created their own online forum to talk about the library tournaments