Going for the Gold Innovating and Collaborating thru Gaming and Digital Technologies The Georgetown

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Going for the GoldInnovating and Collaborating
thru Gaming and Digital Technologies The
Georgetown County Librarys Challenges and
Successes

• Dwight McInvaill, Director
• Georgetown County Library, SC
• 843-545-3304
• dmcinvaill_at_georgetowncountysc.org
• Presentation to the Association for Rural and
  Small Libraries Conference
• September 2009

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Georgetown Countys Library in 1859
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Prosperity on the Back of Enslaved Persons
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Georgetown County Library 2009
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But Enduring Problems Remain
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Weve Got Local Problems that Need Creative
Solutions!
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And Also Some Scarier National Ones!
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How Do We Continue to Succeed in a Brave New
World?
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Lets Do Something Exciting!
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Presently, Libraries are Popular.
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Recommendations for Libraries(According to the
Da Vinci Institute)

• Evaluate the library experience (Survey the
  community figure out how to get at the heart of
  what matters most to your community.)
• Embrace new information technologies.
• Preserve the memories of your own communities.
  (Dont let yours disappear.)
• Experiment with creative spaces so the future
  role of the library can define itself.

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A Paradox? If we would like things to remain the
same with libraries at the center of their
communities (universities, schools, businesses,
cities, towns, etc.) then, maybe, we have got
to do some things differently?
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Augmented Library Users?
Graz University of Technology, Austria
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Augmented Libraries?
Brabant Library, Netherlands (proposed)
American Library Association Library in Second
Life
Graz Tech University, Austria
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Why Wait for the Future?
Delft Library, Netherlands
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We Need to Cultivate All of Our Resources Now!
Georgetown County Library, South Carolina
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Our Library Faces Challenges. For example, we
have

• Limited Resources
• Staff (Only 24 FTEs to serve 60,000 citizens at 4
  locations)
• Money (Of 42 public library systems in SC, we
  rank only 19th in total operating income)
• Lack of Expertise
• Need to Garner Support for Innovations from
• Library Board, Itself
• County Government
• Staff
• General Public
• Grant Givers

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The Library Does All Sorts of Programs for
Youngsters
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Weve had Success in Innovating and Collaborating
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When We Hosted a Ben Franklin Exhibit, We Even
Had Dancing in the Heart of the Exhibit! To
achieve success , we collaborated successfully
with our national funders, with the Humanities
Council of SC, with the Studio of Dance, and with
the Georgetown County School District.
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The library system is a key member of the
Georgetown County First Steps Partnership which
aims to prepare preschoolers to be emotionally,
intellectually, and physically ready for first
grade. As part of this aim, the library
established book collections in 42 childcare
centers throughout the county. The library also
obtained grant funds to develop a special
educational curriculum and to supply a
storyteller to visit each of these preschool
centers monthly to entertain the youngsters and
to serve as a model for the childcare providers.
Additionally, the library continues to furnish
monthly workshops where preschool instructors can
earn continuing-education certification credits.
For this work, the library system won in 2003,
the first Counties Care for Kids Award given by
the National Association of Counties.
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So Weve Always Known that Libraries can Benefit
Young People, but First, Youve Got to Get THEM
inside!
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Weve Used Innovative Technology Projects to Get
Folks to Visit Us

• One of Our Projects Involves Interactive Gaming

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Heres a View of our Interactive Gaming Center at
our Carvers Bay Branch
Your Public Library Keeping Your Community
Connected
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vPM7jAbvLUFceurlht
tp3A2F2Fwww2Egclibrary2Eorg2Fdefault2Easp
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Success Takes Good Rules, People, Spaces,
Equipment, Games, and PR!
We Started with THE LIBRARY CARD.
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Checking Out Library Materials Comes With Being
in the Library Gaming Club.
Graphic Novels, Videos, Music, Magazines, Gaming
Rules, and Even Regular Books!
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Great Staff is Key to Success!
Marilynn Robb, Carvers Bay Branch Manager
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Donald Dennis, Overall Gaming Project Manager
(Bunnelle Youth Technology Experience Series
BYTEs)
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Truman Winns, Carver Bay Branch Library, Gaming
Site Assistant
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Good Spaces are Needed, too.
That takes additional planning, along with
equipment.
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Surround Sound Rear Speakers in ceiling
Center Channel (High)
Meetings Gaming Research Teaching Movies Listening
Learning
Teleconference Camera
LCD Flat Panel Display
Main Left
Main Right
Center Channel (Low)
XBOX
Receiver
DVD/VCR
Headphones
Computer
Network HUB
Signal Limiter
Audio Mixer
USB HUB
Power Outlet A/V Input
Network Port
Sub Left
Sub Right
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Kool-Aid Jammers will Draw Some Folks in like
Bees to Flowers!
So will Good Publicity.
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Wait! Is This Really Okay? Are You
Sure? Parents are often concerned.
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See ALAs Gaming Web Site for Some Good Points
about the Value of Gaming for Kids.

• To Play, Kids will get Library Cards Read
  Books
• Games Sometimes Provide Stories in a New Format
• Games Encourage Problem Solving and Critical
  Thinking
• Games Involve Experimenting and Evaluating
• Games Meet Developmental Needs of Teens
  Established by National Middle School Association
• Games Encourage Social Interaction Between
  Peers and Non Peers, Enforce Rules and
  Boundaries, Encourage Creative Expression, and
  Reward Competence
• Some Games Help to Release and Manage Anger and
  Frustration (See this Book Grand Theft
  Childhood)
• Some Games are Physically Healthy Dance Dance
  Revolution Gets Heart Rates Up to 140 Beats Per
  Minute
• Some Games Help Students with Special Needs
  (See this study from 2005 The Effects of a
  Consumer Oriented Multimedia Game on the Reading
  Disorders of Children)
• Games have Recreational Value
• Many Games are Social
• Some Games Require Reading Instructions, Menus,
  and More
• Some Games (DD, Sports Games, etc) Require
  Statistical Skills and an Understanding of
  Probability
• Some Games Introduce Us to History, Music, etc.
• THE LIST COULD GO ON AND ON!

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• Have a Good Event Schedule
• Carvers Bay Library
• Tournament Schedule (Detailed below)
• OPEN 2nd or 4th weekend of every month (Detailed
  below)
• GAME CLUB ONLY 3rd weekend of every month
  (Detailed below)
• Digital Arts Literacy Experience Through the end
  of the 2009-2010 school year.
• Additional programs will be created if their
  grant status does not continue.
• YDACS Game design program Weekday Afternoons June
  9th July -27th 2009. (Perhaps expanding to
  Georgetown.)
• Andrews Library
• Tournament Schedule
• OPEN 1st weekend of every month (Starting with
  completion of room)
• GAME CLUB ONLY 3rd weekend of every month
  (Starting with completion of room)
• Digital Arts Literacy Experience Through the end
  of the 2009-2010 school year.
• Additional programs will be created to fill the
  gap if their grant status does not continue.
• YDACS Game design program Weekday Afternoons June
  9th July -27th 2010. (If test run at Carvers
  Bay is successful.)
• WBL Library
• OPEN Gaming 1st weekend of every month (Starting
  March 2010)
• Digital Arts class Starts January 2010 if Andrews
  room completed.
• Writing/Storytelling/Blogging January

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• Have Speakers at Game Club Meetings
  andTournaments
• May Norman Lewis (Mentor Local)
• June Tronster Hartly (Sr. Programmer Firaxis
  Games Web conference)
• July Ron Brown (USC)
• August Adam Cooksey of Perry Cunningham (Game
  Stop - Local)
• September NONE Hurricane party
• October  DJ Hammonds (Artist - Local)
• November Alan Webb (Game Tester, Level Designer
  - Web conference)
• December Tim Collins Donald Dennis
• January Kathy Tempesta (Zenimax, Producer, Test
  Lead)
• February Steve Roff Service over Self
  (Approached, not confirmed)
• March - Sean Torrens (Parks Rec Local)
• April County IT guys. (Weve talked to several,
  and they are interested. Asked us to get in touch
  as we got closer to the time.

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Heres the URL for Libraries, Literacy and Gaming
at ALA http//librarygamingtoolkit.org ALA
Verizon Made It Possible
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10 Recipients of 5,000 Literacy and Gaming
Initiative Grants

• Anderson Public Library, Anderson, Ind. Techie
  Tuesdays emphasizes technology and information
  literacy through gaming. Held over a period of
  six months, the program is divided into three,
  six-week courses engaging students by making a
  video game, a board game, and a book trailer.
• Brewster Ladies Library, Brewster, Mass. The
  library will use GPS technology to create an
  adventure game that requires reading, research,
  critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork, and
  aligns closely with technology standards
  established by the International Society for
  Technology in Education.
• Cascade Middle School, Cascade, Wash.
• The librarys Gaming Zone initiative will develop
  two afterschool programs a week, encompassing
  board and video game creation workshops,
  tournaments and hint book/cheat sheet
  development.
• Henshaw Middle School Library, Anchorage School
  District, Anchorage, Alaska Expand DDR to 10
  middle schools add a lunchtime computers gaming
  program to use Spore Civilization, strategy
  simulation games

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• Indian Trails Public Library, Wheeling, Ill.
• Participants will learn about four categories of
  gaming from gaming experts computer animation
  games, card games, board games, and role-playing
  games, then work in teams to create games. Then,
  they will participate in a Game Fair using the
  Science Fair model, and compete in the Chicago
  Toy and Game Fair Young Inventor Challenge.
• Manhattanville College Library, Purchase, N.Y.
  Students will design games for middle school
  students on how to use the library to find a
  book, use a general database, ask for reference
  help, navigate the library website, and develop a
  time management plan.
• San Pablo Library, San Pablo, Calif. Youth will
  track their participation in a variety of
  music-literacy related activities via a 'Musical
  Scavenger Hunt' big game.

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• Sewickley Public Library, Sewickley, Pa. In this
  10-week program, middle school youth will plan
  and facilitate gaming events for younger
  students, which will then be held at the public
  library. Participants will document their efforts
  by producing a video of the steps they followed.
  A school assembly to showcase participants
  finished movie would entice fellow teens to get
  involved with the next session and would make the
  students accountable for their time spent in the
  program. A viewing would also be held in the
  library for parents and interested community
  members.
• Wayne County Public Library, Goldsboro, N.C.
  
• This narrative focused experience includes a
  variety of creative and competitive events to
  give the youth in the community a place of their
  own that caters to their interests while
  fulfilling their needs for intellectual growth.
  Example A fan-fiction contest where young
  people will write original stories about their
  favorite video game characters and create stories
  incorporating characters they create in games.

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• Weber Country Library System, Ogden, UtahThis
  ambitious proposal to move tween/teens beyond
  merely playing games, and to immerse them in a
  physical, creative, visual, and written game
  creation process to foster artistic, literary,
  and media literacy has many unique components,
  including a computer building workshop that
  addresses a level of technical analysis and
  critical planning skills in a practical hands-on
  effort seen in no other proposal.

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Try Educational Games
http//www.stopdisastersgame.org/en/home.html
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Turn Little Devils
Into Little Angels!
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Some Educational Games Can Be Found Online.
Heres a Selection of Nine.
Bank Jr. Teaches grades 1-5 students about how
to handle money through simulation and games.
This is a fun site. http//www.bankjr.com/
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What2Learn Prepare for exam success by playing
over two thousand FREE interactive activities and
revision games. http//www.what2learn.com/
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CBBC Roar Run your own nature park. http//www.b
bc.co.uk/cbbc/roar/
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CBBC KS3 Bitesize Heres an online video game
from the BBC where players have to answer
questions related to English, Science and Math.
As you answer the questions correctly, a little
questionaut in a balloon gets to continue on
his journey. http//www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bite
size/games/questionaut/pop.shtml
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Time Pirates Heres an extraordinarily ambitious
interactive game-site designed to help students
learn about the history of London from 2,000
years ago to now. http//timepirates.atticmedia.
com/flash/
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iCue Its a very interactive collaboration
between NBC and MIT with much to the site. It
deals basically with how to learn about the news,
but thats an understatement. Its designed for
students thirteen years-old and above. You can
play games, watch videos (with very easy
simultaneous access to transcripts, save student
work, and a ton of other activities. You have to
register, but its free and easy to do
so. http//www.icue.com/
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Free Poverty Its an online geography game
similar to the popular Free Rice vocabulary game
that donates money to purchase rice for
distribution by the United Nations. In Free
Poverty, though, money to distribute water is
supposedly distributed to Third World countries
for every correct answer. http//www.freepoverty.
com/
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Maps are a part of every great adventure. They
help you find your way, share information, look
at patterns, and solve problems. What can YOU do
with maps? Help endangered animals Find sunken
treasure Explore a pyramid Collect rocks on
Mars Go on a family adventure Learn
more! http//www.mywonderfulworld.org/toolsforadv
enture/index.html
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Stock News Game In it, youre given a very
short piece of information about a company, and
then have to predict if its stock goes down,
stays the same, or goes up by the end of the day
that news came out. Its accessible to high
Intermediate or Advanced English Language
Learners to get a little more of a sense of how
the stock market works. http//www.stocknewsgame
.com/play_game.php
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And Have a Family Game Night at the Library It
was a full house Tuesday April 7th, 2009 when we
had our first family game night at the Georgetown
Technology and Game Lab. We had twelve
participants that evening, mostly kids with some
parents, a number we expect to grow in the months
to come.
Webkinz are stuffed animals with a code for
online play. Kids tend to their virtual pets in
safe online activities. http//www.webkinz.com/us_
en/
Ooga is a tabletop recognition game where kids
hunt dinosaurs with rubber suction cup spears.
http//www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9506
In Blokus 3D, players get 3-D pieces to try to
place by already-set pieces of their own color.
http//www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6411
Bella Sara gives girls the chance to trade
special beautiful horse cards. Online, girls can
care for their horses in various ways.
http//bellasara.com/
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Bring a New Crowd and their Parents Into the
Library!
And Watch the Magic Happen!
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Track Kids Progress in Literacy and Good Behavior
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Expect Good Results.Heres Ours in Year One

• Increase in library card holders from only 2 to
  13
• 42.7 of registered users are under 18 years old
• 56.8 of these juveniles are checking out library
  materials
• 15 of local high school students are members of
  the gaming club (81 of 550)
• 30 of gamers are checking out 4 items monthly
• 90 of gamers are African-American Males
• 20 teens monthly attend cultural programs at the
  library

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Add an Exciting Video Game Design Endeavor.
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http//scratch.mit.edu
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Try Video Game Design and Review Competitions

• Video Game Concept Competition
• Over the course of the summer, June 9th July
  -25th BYTES participants at any GCLS location
  will be able to present video game design
  concepts. These concepts will be presented to
  video game design professionals for review.
  Prizes will be awarded for the best idea, and
  best presented pitch. Awards will be given at the
  August open tournament. Each entry of sufficient
  length satisfies one literacy requirement.
• Video Game Review Competition
• Over the course of the summer, June 9th July
  -25th BYTES participants at any GCLS location
  will be able to submit video game reviews in one
  of three categories Written in word or other
  appropriate program, Oral recording, Video
  recording. Reviews will be judged by professional
  video game reviewers. Awards will be given for
  each category with at least five entries at the
  August open tournament. Each entry of sufficient
  length satisfies one literacy requirement.
• Competitions will be repeated during each school
  quarter, if participation justifies continuing
  the program.

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We Also Use Digital Arts to Stimulate Literacy
along with Library Usage
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It Takes Good Equipment
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It Needs Good Instructors
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Add Great Young People to that Mix
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Youve Got Success!
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Again
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And Again
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And Again!
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A 2009 ICMA Library Innovation Grant Lets Us
Bring it All Together!
The Hurricane Project Georgetown County, SC ICMA
Public Library Innovation Grant
Digital Library of Historic Hurricane Photographs
Digital Film Collection of Oral History Interviews
Digital Storytelling on Hurricanes using
Photostory3
Digital Video PSAs on Hurricanes by Teens
Digital Game Simulations for Young People on
Hurricanes
Web 2.0 Ways to Communicate Hurricane Dangers
Collaborators Georgetown County
Library Georgetown County Emergency Management
Georgetown County Service Over Self Georgetown
County Schools Frances P. Bunnelle Foundation
Contact Dwight McInvaill, Director, Georgetown
County Library dmcinvaill_at_georgetowncountysc.org 8
43-545-3304
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Kids Star in PSAs on Hurricane Prevention
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Local Artists Design the Props that Help the Kids
Become Stars!
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Young People Go Out on the Town to Film Other
PSAs Themselves!
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Using Technology Creatively Can Lead to a Good
Community Spirit
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Some Folks Have Considered our Strategies to be
Good Ones.
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We Plan to Continue to Reach for the Gold thru
Gaming and Digital Technology!
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For More Information, Contact Dwight McInvaill,
Director Georgetown County Library,
SC 843-545-3304 dmcinvaill_at_georgetowncountysc.org
Here he is going after more gold at the White
House!