February 23, 2005
Wider Library Acceptance and Games
The OCLC midwinter 2005 conference presented a symposium on online Games and the significance for information literacy. This is excellent news as what has been known for a while is finally being acknowledged within wider institutional parameters. This entry summarizes a few discussions at this panel. To note, this excellent panel is available with streaming video and parallel powerpoint at http://www.oclc.org/membership/escan/default.htm#launch and is definitely worth reflecting upon.
George Needham pointed out that gaming is a forum for collaborative development. Games are a metaphor for how our field may operate in the future, gamers are always the stars of their games, in games, there is always a solution and failure is always a part of success.
Kurt Squire, Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, presented on the larger parameters and economo-cultural implications for games and society. Currently, the online games industry tops Hollywood in billions of sales. Games can be critically and intellectually engaging and create vibrant online communities. Games are a push technology driving technological innovation, requiring new literacies but also enabling learning. Expertise is valued rather than 'accreditation'. Personally meaningful learning occurs and sites of collective intelligence such as "Wikipedia" constantly revise and improve on knowledge - they are immediately dynamic and fluid knowledge mechanisms. Kurt raised an excellent question regarding libraries and digital possibilities: Why is it that I go to Amazon to see what my peers are reading (networking ) possibilities. Why do I go to a blog to see what is new in my field?
Constance Steinkuehler of the University of Wisconsin-Madison talked about massively multiplayer online games (1 million +) in which the populations of many games dwarfs real cities. These games are interested in online social interaction and centrally concerned with literacy practices, problem solving and learning. Constance pointed out that the content of the game also generates a centripetal force with ancillary waves of 'knowledge' around the actual game. Constance pointed out gaming is a 'literacy practice itself', gamers as producers with collective intelligence generated from gaming. Qute typical of gameplay is 'multimodal' thinking (i.e. mutiple attention spaces, multitasking with different screens, applications and tasks open, information becomes tool for future action). Mentorship happens in online gaming through participation and apprenticeship.
John Beck, author of Got Game: How the Gamer Generation is Reshaping Business Forever, talked about capturing the value of the gamer generation. The scarcest resource is attention and everyone is trying to get it. Websites that have a game component to them get the most attention. Gamers continue to immerse themselves in ever more powerful learning technologies, hold new beliefs about what is important in life. They think different, learn different, believe different and are different. Growing up on games creates a new way of thinking about the world - games are a valid way to experience and learn about the world, games change how people respond to incentives and risks and how they absorb new concepts. 10 % of what you read is retained, 40% of what you hear is retained, 70% of what you do is retained. Strategy guides give impetus to learning. Loyalty is a characteristic more endemic to gamers and gamers are more sociable and work better in teams.
There is a lot of material to absorb here. At the least, academic library research agendas should take note if not on the level of implementation that at the least, demographics as this population is large growing and our future essential audience.