College Librarians Urged To Play Video Games

An anonymous reader writes "At meeting of college librarians, experts tell them they need to start thinking the way video game producers think and provide library services that will make sense to those who play computer games. 'In an era when most students would have to go to a museum to see an old-fashioned card catalog, there's no doubt that libraries have embraced technology. But speakers said that there was a larger split between students -- who are "digital natives," in one popular way of classifying people based on their experience with technology -- and librarians, who are more likely to be "digital immigrants." They may have learned the language, but it's a second language.'"

Comments

Nooo!

[kiracatgirl]

I don't want my library to be digitalized for the masses! I like to go to the library as a place to go find real books. Yeah, doing research in a library is totally different from doing it online. Isn't that the point? And you definitely don't need to do lots of reading about how to use a library. You want to get information on a subject, you ask a librarian where you can find information about it, they tell you, you go there and you read the books. It's that simple.

And what was with that religion analogy? Someone seems a little biased, on multiple levels.

The biggest obstacles in the way of librarians teaching students are the librarians who don't want to teach, and the students who don't want to learn.

Re:As a Digital Native...

[Echnin]

Well, it's easier to find several books on one subject when they're all in the same area, isn't it? I worked for half a year at the university library, and while the Dewey system wasn't used (except for reference literature and archeology for some reason), we had a homebrewed system that grouped similar books together. It's nice when you go looking for one book, and then find others that look interesting. In my experience, by the way, the youth are very able to find the books they're looking for; for the most part the people who come asking for help to find a book have grey or no hair. So that's that.

Re:As a Digital Native...

[steveo777]

I grew up with the card catalog. For the first six years of my educational career (85-91), I was fed information about how to find information in a library. I never had a clue how to use the Dewey Decimal System. It was simple memorization, really. I just never cared. It was a boring, dismal, library and I wanted to play outside.

Now... I can honestly not recall the last time I was in a library. Probably the one time I had to go there for a college report in which I couldn't use a single internet-based source (and I fell asleep in one of the isles). But now that the "Big Ten" are throwing their libraries into Google's knowledge base, I may never have to go there again. And, somehow, I feel relaxed.

Nothing against libraries. I used to borrow books every week when I was a child. Never non-fiction, however. Now I just shop at used book stores and read all the more.

Re:So what will they use

[drinkypoo]

When the power goes out? Card catalogs.

When the power goes out, in most cases, you can't read the card catalogs. Most libraries' windows do not provide sufficient sunlight for clear vision.

I come from the generation who can actually do math without a calculator. We used slide rules and log tables.

Dude. I mean, DUDE. "We could do it without a calculator. We were still fucked without our slide rules and log tables, though." That's all I have to say about that.

Todays digital kids would be lost in a society with no gizmo's.

For instance, a grammar checker, which if it even knew the word "gizmo" would at least know that it doesn't require an apostrophe to be made plural.

My captcha is "retracts" which is what I would do with a comment like the one you wrote...

Re:So what will they use

[PhysicsPhil]

I come from the generation who can actually do math without a calculator. We used slide rules and log tables. We could interpolate.

All due respect, but every generation makes this kind of argument about their kids. My grandfather was a blacksmith, making horseshoes and metal tools. He knew how to pluck chicken and how to gut and clean a deer. He knew how to treat a turkey's wing so that it was rough enough to use as a scouring pad. My parents don't know how to do this, and I don't either.

My father knows how to take apart a car engine, at least the older mechanical systems. He knows how to do tool-and-die work and carpentry, although he doesn't know about log tables.

Do I know how to do any of this? No way, and I don't need to. I can go to the store and pick up a plucked chicken, the hardware store has plenty of tools made by other people and I would hire a mechanic to do car work. While I know all about log tables, they are an archaic tool, and I'd be a tool as well if I relied upon them in today's world.

Instead I can program a computer in several languages, operate million-dollar plasma-etching and lithography systems, and calculate the hyperfine-structure of a hydrogen emission spectrum. Every generation (and person) acquires skills useful and relevant to the society they live in, and dropping irrelevant skills is just a part of technological advancement.

Video Games?

[dj_tla]

This article is interesting, despite their wide generalizations of gamers, many of which are not really true. If you take out their focus on mentioning video games and gamers every sentence, the article is really about two things.

People aren't having a whole lot of fun in libraries. They suggest: Hold LAN parties, after hours, in libraries. In effect, make the library somewhere that people associate with fun, instead of... not. I don't think this will ever work: people come to the library to find books. If people enjoy reading, they'll enjoy the library. If they just come to do work, then they probably won't. Nothing wrong with that. In my opinion, if you want to make libraries seem like a more fun place, they should have more sections that don't stress silence so much. Of course, people who are trying to work or read quietly, perfectly understandable, but if I'm just leisurely reading and I see someone reading an interesting book, I might want to have a chat with that person. If you go to any bookstore, especially one with a cafe attached, you'll see tons of people reading, drinking coffee and chatting. Why? Silence isn't an enforced rule.

The real substance of the article, though, is about usability. It's not really true that no gamer reads the manual before playing, but the reason that it's not mandatory is because games (especially console games) have a common interface. If you're playing on the 360, you know the controller layout, it's just a matter of pushing a button and seeing what it does. PC games can be a bit more complicated, and I would argue that most people tend to read the readme or look at the Controls option in the game to find out what the controls are. Libraries without a doubt could use a usability overhaul. A requisite link for talking about usability is Don Norman's publications.

As a sidenote, I really hate the term "Digital Natives". I hope it doesn't catch on.

Re:As a Digital Native...

[TheRealMindChild]

This reminds me of a story passed around my previous employer which I call "The Monkey and Banana story".

Start with a cage containing five monkeys.

Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a ladder under it. Before long, one of the monkeys will spot the banana and start to climb the ladder. As soon as he does, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water.

Replace the banana.

After a while another of the monkeys will probably go for the banana. Again, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water. Monkeys are fairly smart, so pretty soon whenever one of the monkeys tries to climb the ladder all the other monkeys will try and prevent him doing it. When this happens, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. Then put another banana at the top of the ladder.

The new monkey will spot the banana and make for the ladder. To his surprise all of the other monkeys attack him. After a couple more attempts result in further beatings the new monkey will not make any attempt to go for the banana.

Remove another of the original monkeys and replace it with another new one. Then replace the banana. Again, the new monkey will make a grab for it. Like his predecessor he will be amazed to find that all the other monkeys attack him. The previous newcomer will take part in his punishment with some enthusiasm.

One at a time, gradually replace all of the original monkeys with new ones. Each of the newcomers will go for the banana. Each one will be attacked by the other four. Most of the new monkeys have absolutely no idea why they were not allowed to climb the ladder, or why they are participating in the assault on the newest monkey.



When all of the original monkeys have been replaced, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless no monkey ever approaches the ladder. Why not? Because as far as they are concerned that's the way it has always been done around here.

Re:So what will they use

[maddskillz]

If the power goes out, I can wait till it comes back on. I guess I am lucky that I have never been in a situation where finding a book had to be done.
Do you have your slide rules and log tables handy? If not, they will be no more useful then a calculator without batteries.
You call them gizmo's, I call them tools. You just have to make the most out of what you are given. Why bother learning some historic tool that you will never use. You have to look at how much time/energy it will take to learn vs the benefit of knowing how to use the tool

Re:As a Digital Native...

[nine-times]

That's a good story about how traditions can become out-of-date, but it doesn't follow that therefore traditions in general are bad. In fact, if you continued to harm the monkeys whenever one of them reached for a banana, they'd be pretty smart to continue to prevent other monkeys from taking the banana.

I'lll give you my own story:

A man lives in a village where his parents always told him "never eat blue berries, because they're bad luck!" They tell him, "Never walk under ladders, or you might drop dead!" One old man says, "Don't break mirrors, or the gods might curse you!" The man goes around asking where all these ideas come from, and no one gives him a satisfactory answer. They tell him, "That's just what my parents told me." or "That's what people have always said." So this man, fed up with superstition, goes and eats some of the blue berries, and they taste pretty good. He breaks a mirror in his bedroom and nothing bad happens. He walks under a ladder and startles the person working above him, and the worker drops his hammer, which knocks the man on his head.

He feels dazed, but he didn't drop dead. He says to himself, "Well, that last one wasn't so good, but it was my own fault. There's nothing supernatural about that!" He starts feeling queasy, runs home, and begins throwing up and having violent diarrhea. About three hours into his fit of vomiting, the man begins to question whether the berries might be poisonous. As the illness subsides, the man decides he should get some rest, so he heads into his bedroom. On the way to his bed, his foot is pierced by a small shard of glass, painted silver on one side.

Years later, the man has some children. He tells them, "Don't walk under ladders! Something bad might happen!" He says, "Don't break mirrors because it's bad luck." He tells his children, "Don't eat the blue berries because there's something evil about them."

I'm not suggesting we should never question tradition, but very often traditions have evolved over long periods of time, through a lot of human trial and error, to provide rules and guidelines that provide safer and healthier living. As our world changes, our traditions have to adapt. Different ways of life, different climates, and different contexts might call for different sets of traditions, and traditions can't simply be taken piecemeal out of context. Still, it's not always smart to dismiss something you don't understand only because it's "just a stupid tradition."