The Shifted Librarian: What I Took Away from the GLS Conference

The most obvious, glaring thing is that librarians (in general) have absolutely no clue about what is going on in this area. Academia is only now starting to do more than just study it, but it’s not even on our radar. I’ve noted before that I talk about Millennials in the context of serving them where they are (rather than making them come to us), but I hadn’t really thought through all of the implications of the gaming side of it. If you have young children or grandchildren, you can see how gaming affects them, and in turn how they interact with information and multi-modal interfaces. Henry Jenkins, James Gee, Kurt Squire, and all of the other speakers presented a compelling case for bringing gaming into education and taking advantage of what these kids are learning from it to innovate, create, and collaborate. I’ve definitely drunk that Kool-Aid.

None of this would have changed what we submitted in the gaming grant last week, but now I’m thinking so much bigger. At MLS, we were already discussing holding an institute or a symposium on gaming and libraries this fall, and now I’m even more motivated to make this happen. There’s a lot going on here that librarians need to learn about, but I also want to see some action. For example, it seems to me that parents are also very unprepared for what is happening. Most of them don’t even know there is something happening, and I think libraries can help educate them. So my first thought is to have a two-day event where the first day is learning and education, and the second day is brainstorming actual implementations.