Libraries and YA SF

Full title: Fortress of solitude or our last best hope? The role of libraries in fostering YA spec fic

An interesting discussion, particularly for SF fans – it was reported that young adults are requesting exclusively speculative fiction in a place like Sunshine, and in some cases are using it to upgrade their reading level by some years. My grave doubts about the quality of YA speculative reading were not exactly allayed by the news that science fiction was only a fraction of the market and fantasy & particularly paranormal romance (Twilight) were the bulk of the reading, though; what does it say about the state of manhood in the West that the dominant metaphor for male-female relationships is features men who are lifeless, monstrous parasites with violent appetites?

The big takeaway was finding the balance between the shift to a more communal quality to library spaces generally, and the opportunities that creates to facilitate the socialisation of the quiet reading-focused kids with each other and into their wider peer groups, and protecting the possibility of just sitting and reading, of the private and solitary time that fosters reflection and individual growth.

My own question, which I didn’t get the chance to ask, was how games integrate into this; to my mind, a good game (especially a good co-operative game) is a chance to combine thoughtful engagement with social interplay. If you’ll pardon the pun. There will be more on this, but I need to get the stuff from the Con out of my head quickly and get to sleep for tomorrow.

Notes for games collections at public libraries

Another post of something I wrote up (in my own time) for the library I was working in… posted in case it’s useful as a starting point for someone else trying to get games into libraries. It’s written as an infodump for specific people at that specific service and as a result the style is pretty dense, so it will need adapting; but maybe it’ll save someone some time and helps get games into a library somewhere. It worked for me, despite games and collection management being no part of my job description: the library now has both a “games books” lending collection (mainly RPGs) and a bunch of board and card games for use inside the library.

Notes for games collections at public libraries

Games:

• are tests of skill (unless they are pure games of chance, which are usually regulated as gambling) and therefore improve abstract reasoning, hand-eye co-ordination and/or ability to “read” and anticipate other people. Many improve other skills, such as resource management, linguistic skills, vocabulary, etc. The only games without any such benefit are pure games of chance, such as roulette – which are almost always played for stakes and are therefore regulated as gambling.
• have historically been important parts of our culture: an understanding of chess, for example, deepens an understanding of a wide range of texts.
• are important parts of other cultures, and a great way into learning about those cultures and interacting with the people who live them.
• are an increasing part of the leisure-activity market.
• come in many varieties, not all of which are easily integrated into a traditional library collection – but some of which are.
• linked to the above, may or may not come complete with everything you need to play. Some may only be rules.
• are based on platforms of every level of technology from sticks and stones to advanced electronics.
• are often expensive (but, arguably, cheap for the number of hours they occupy relative to traditional, non-participatory media).
• can be free (or available for free download if you print them yourself).
• like comic books/graphic novels, are breaking out of a “kids’ stuff” ghetto and are taking on more sophisticated thematic, aesthetic and cultural elements. Some are completely unsuitable for children. Also like comics, parents can get quite irate if their kids get hold of adult material in a “kiddie” medium.
• are a growing source of jobs – games journalism/criticism, and especially game design, are booming (though highly competitive) areas of employment.
• as with film, literature, and fine art, some games are highly controversial and are portrayed by some as inculcating violence or inhumanity. The same arguments about free speech are being made about games as have been made (and continue to be made) about other media. Games are therefore, again like other artforms, important politically as well as culturally.
• are increasingly integrated into other media. Every major-release film now has a game released at the same time, and these are not always repetitions of the same story. The Matrix trilogy, for instance, had an accompanying computer game revolving around the actions of a couple of supporting characters in The Matrix: Reloaded, and the action of the game interwove with the action of the film, explaining a number of elements of the movie which were otherwise unexplained. (This was planned from the start by the movies’ creators.) It also featured around an hour of footage filmed on the same sets, with the same cast, and at the same time as the movie. It is probably fair to say that the game was the fourth part of the trilogy.
• are increasingly being used not only for fun but for educational and/or polemic purposes. Examples include the UN Food Program’s game Food Force (simulates the real difficulties faced by UNFP personnel in the field); Real Lives (generates a random person of varying background and wealth anywhere in the world, lets you play out choices in the real context of their lives, based on actual statistics); various online games created in response to the Iraq war; America’s Army, a free game created and distributed by the US Army as a recruiting tool… the list goes on.

Probably the most important distinction between games from a collections point of view is whether they are electronic (played on a computer or console) or non-electronic.

Electronic games

For a library, the only major distinction within the category of electronic games is between the “platforms”, i.e., equipment required to run the games. The three types are computer games (games to be played on a general-purpose computer, i.e. Windows, Mac, Linux etc), console games (which require a dedicated games-playing machine which plugs into a standard TV), and handheld games (played on portable devices about the size of a PalmPilot which require no other equipment, except batteries/chargers).

The current consoles of note are the Microsoft XBox 360, Nintendo Wii, and Sony PlayStation 3 (the PlayStation 2 is also still a current platform, but new releases are limited). The usual interval between console updates being released is 5-10 years. This means that the life of a game (assuming the physical medium survives) is 5-10 years, with the peak of its use in the first 3 or so years. (Computer games have a similar lifespan, as hardware and operating systems become outdated too.)

The current handhelds of note are the Sony PSP (PlayStation Portable) and the Nintendo DS  (Double-Screen).

Electronic games, by and large, can be stored and treated exactly like other optical electronic media (CDs and DVDs). Physically, they are identical: optical discs with optional booklets of various lengths, though games tend to have thicker booklets. Not that it is strictly relevant to the library, as we are not responsible for patrons’ actions, but they can be pirated just like CDs and DVDs, and like such media they often include built-in copy protection.

The decisions to be made by any library considering including these games in its collection are:

• Which platforms to buy for.
• If lending console/handheld games, whether to have the appropriate devices available to borrow as well, so that patrons without the console can play the games. On the one hand, we do not lend out DVD players; on the other, libraries experimenting with eBooks often do lend out eBook reader devices.

You would also need to ask suppliers about copyright/licensing issues pertaining to electronic games.

Loan periods would want to be reasonably long; games can take some time to play through. Good games can contain upwards of 100 hours of gameplay, though 20 is more typical.

Peripheral fact: Many computer games now support “mods” – modifications to gameplay and in-game virtual environments made by the public. Console games currently do not. Mods are generally available for free and provide an opportunity to develop game design skills. Talented mod authors are often hired by commercial game companies. This is mentioned to highlight the fact that these media are as open to patron authorship as more traditional library media – perhaps not as readily as books, but certainly as readily as movies.

Non-electronic games

Non-electronic games have enormous variety. Setting aside sports, they include:

• Nursery rhymes/schoolyard games
• Card games
• Board games
• Dice games
• War/strategy games
• Role-playing games (tabletop and “live action”)
• Jigsaw puzzles
• Educational or training exercises

They may use some or all of the following elements:

• Bodily gestures, words
• Quasi-theatrical characterisation
• Dice
• Cards
• Boards
• Generic tokens representing players (Monopoly, Snakes & Ladders)
• Specific tokens with particular abilities or effects within the game (Chess, Scrabble, war games)

Some or all of these things can reasonably be supplied by patrons. (Indeed a boardgame company called Cheapass Games makes a point of keeping its games cheap by NOT including dice, player tokens etc on the grounds that buyers probably have about 10 sets of these already and they are cheaply available elsewhere. They sell you only the rules, board and sometimes cards specific to the game. Presumably the next logical step has already been taken by having even these things available for download in PDF form.)

Some card cards, board games and war games (similar to board games except that the “terrain” – i.e. the board – changes) are collectible. That is to say, not all pieces are included in a newly purchased set, and new pieces are regularly released over several years, with new sets often carrying new rules to vary gameplay. Collectible games are not well suited to a library collection; they are more susceptible to theft, there is likely to be considerable inflationary pressure on the budget to “buy them all”, and keeping collections and collection information up-to-date is complex.

Collection issues also arise with games which include all the pieces but use specific tokens, such as Scrabble or chess. Losing a piece makes the game un- or less playable. This is more easily addressed, for example by not permitting the game to leave library premises, or having cheap, not-very-attractive, and/or distinctive pieces – such as Scrabble tiles with the library logo on the back, which would not blend with any other set. (For well-known games, custom pieces are commercially available at reasonable prices.) Above all, pieces should be easily and cheaply replaced.

The obvious point arising from the above is that the games which are most easily included in a library collection are those which exist primarily as a set of rules, and where any equipment needed to play is provided by players. These are nursery rhymes/schoolyard games; card games; dice games; role-playing games; and possibly educational games. This can be stretched to include board games which use only dice and non-specific player tokens, which are easily replaced, but as more tokens are involved in play (and especially if they are difficult to distinguish and/or count, such as cards or tiles) the game becomes more and more difficult to keep in one piece. Thus Ludo or Snakes and Ladders make good games for a library collection, but Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit do not.

Most library collections already include some coverage of nursery rhymes/schoolyard games in their children’s collections. Similarly, rulebooks for card games, and to a lesser extent dice games, are likely to already be present in a library collection.

Historically, role-playing games have not been included in library collections. This is partly because of controversy (reports of association with Satanism and/or mental illness) and partly because of discomfort with the performative aspect of such games as players “act” their characters – it has associations of childishness (the “let’s pretend” elements), kitsch fantasy, geekery and/or bad improv. Live action role-playing (where participants actually dress in character, swing padded “swords” in combat etc) in particular is seen as embarrassing. However, both “live” and table-top role-playing are becoming more popular.

Educational or polemic uses of games have rarely been the subject of books in their own right, but this is changing. The use of games to illustrate points about and to counter common assumptions, to develop mental faculties and ways of thinking, etc., is increasingly popular. War simulations, the military training tactic which pits troops against their own side to provide something like actual battlefield experience and to test new technologies and strategies, is beginning to be adopted on a smaller scale in the corporate world and even by some large NGOs.

Games as a field of study

Interest in game design is growing. This is particularly focused on computer game design, but is not limited to is. It is worth keeping an eye out for new books in this field; more and more people are interested in the analysis of game structures and design, games as cultural and aesthetic artefacts, and so on.

Game theory is a related, also very interesting, and often neglected area of study which touches on mathematics (especially probabilities), logical analysis, psychology and even ethics and politics. (Game theory is essentially about how people second-guess each other. Many famous ethical and political problems, such as The Prisoner’s Dilemma, are problems in game theory.)

Social cataloguing in a local library

Following on from the previous libraries 2.0 post… some quick thoughts on how cataloguing tools would work in a 2.0 catalogue.

Traditional cataloguing tools would be retained – library collections would still be catalogued according to library standards. However, new tools would be needed for managing user-catalogued items and suggested amendments to existing items. Spell-checkers would be useful (for traditional cataloguing tools as well, actually, judging by some of the records I’ve seen), but they’d need to be able to draw on authority indices as an additional dictionary to allow authors’ names to be recognised. (One of the banes of many book-related 2.0 services I’ve seen is misspellings of author names.) It could be worth highlighting author names which turn up in other fields, as well. A separate signifier for “this word/name is spelled in one of several possible valid ways” could be useful, though as with any such tool the option to turn it off would need to be available to the end user. Finally, a blacklist of offensive terms could be a useful filtering tool for public libraries which would hesitate to catalogue legitimate materials with offensive titles – the majority of such submissions to an open catalogue would be potty-mouthed idiots rather than real titles anyway.

Library 2.0

This post is a public posting of a discussion paper I wrote about 14 months ago for my workplace – a local library service. It has been tweaked a bit since its first airing and has also been overtaken by events – notably the official launch of Civica’s Sorcer, mentioned below, which shows considerable promise of supporting some of the key ideas below. [Sorry, too new – no easily findable link on their site as at 1 March ’10.] But I want to get these ideas out there more widely so I’m publishing this now, as is, so I can point people to it. Please note that I make no claim of being the first person to have any of these ideas; I’m fishing for similar thinkers as much as pushing my own ideas.

Library 2.0

(as opposed to library 1.0 with web 2.0 trimmings)

The distinction above is made because I have yet to see a library service which fully embraces the fundamental principle of web 2.0: user-created content.

Libraries are allowing users to enrich the content libraries provide, and are even beginning to allow for some of the social networking functionality of web 2.0 exemplars like Facebook, for instance with products like Civica’s Sorcer. But they are still only tinkering around the edges of traditional library infrastructure.

Libraries are places where culture and information are gathered, made easy to find, and shared. Previously, as with traditional publishing models, this has been a centre-out model where authoritative library staff describe material they have selected themselves. Library users must learn to use those descriptors as given in order to search a set of materials which they can only alter indirectly, through requests.

In a true “library 2.0” culture, library staff continue to select materials and describe what is available according to current standards, but we are not the only ones to do so. This means:

• The public are able to not only add descriptors (folksonomies) to existing records, but to add new catalogue records and holdings. Library staff vet these entries to ensure quality and social standards are met (no typos or obscenities, no added material which breaches collection policies).
• Collection policies and cataloguing standards are potentially more open to public discussion, and mechanisms for reporting on catalogue additions which were blocked (and the reasons for doing so) will be important.
• Additional descriptors are not only consciously added, but are drawn from aggregate data which links search terms and what catalogue users end up borrowing.
• The catalogue is able to distinguish between records and fields based on who catalogued them, and users are able to subscribe and unsubscribe from sources as they choose.
• Catalogue listings are not limited to only “what is owned by and available in the library”, but are reconceived as “what is available to library members” – which might include items that are shared directly between members.
• The library not only provides reading stock and facilities, it provides systems whereby inter-borrower sharing can take place – with or without personal contact between users (possibly using reservation shelves as delivery points).
• To support users who do want to meet, the library creates spaces in which personal contact is safer (with mechanisms for interpersonal contact that do not require personal information to be revealed), and where users know they are empowered and supported to deal with unpleasant interactions. Access to library staff trained in dealing with such situations (and if required able to provide referrals to effective methods of redress, such as intervention orders) offers a safer environment for meeting others in the community, favourably altering the risk/reward calculations of participation in local life.
• The library interlinks with existing systems that already do some of these things (such as LibraryThing, Freegan websites, etc) and makes it easy to import and export personal data for use in other services (library and other).
• The social functionality offered by the library allows for people to form, join and manage book clubs and other common-interest groups. (Movie clubs, gaming groups, et cetera.)
• Given that (in Australia at least) there is a close link between library services and local government areas, such interest groups might include local political groups, allowing for possible overlap with Council software functionality. This should be of particular interest to someone like Civica.
• Libraries are places where people can publish their own works (print, electronic, and other) locally and which enable wider publication. In other words, the linkage between the members of the local community grows, and the link into the wider world of culture and information becomes two-way.
• To this end, libraries provide or are at least connected to basic multi-purpose spaces, suitable for exhibition, performance, meetings and play, which the public can book.
• Ideally, libraries also offer access to some sort of paper publishing facility – perhaps a print-on-demand service, which in addition to facilitating library users in publishing their own works, would also make hard-to-get items easier to obtain for the collection. This may be a service which is contracted out, or may become a core service.

These are only the most obvious changes implied by a thorough application of the 2.0 user-driven framework to library systems. Some further evolutions could include:

• With the above shift in service focus, libraries may well become venues where local citizen media report to both local and wider audiences. This may or may not be desirable (as it will lead to politicization of the library beyond current levels), but it is a distinct possibility, and in cultures where the tradition of citizen journalism is strong (such as the USA) could be a major application for a true 2.0 library service.
• Tourism applications may arise, with locals sharing insider knowledge of the area’s beauty spots or other enjoyable experiences with each other and outsiders.

The key point is that the expertise and resource base offered by a library community has the potential to do far more both within its local area and in linking (and especially publishing) its home area to the wider world.