Sunday, November 29, 2009

Database Comp - ERIC: Pearl Growing

I found this lovely article about a computer club in a library.

Imagine, Invent, Program, Share: A Library-Hosted Computer Club Promotes 21st Century SkillsFull Text Available . By: Myers, Brian. Computers in Libraries, v29 n3 p6-9, 38-40 Mar 2009. (EJ831235)
Database: ERIC

It is about a group of young people, game designers, programmers and people with interest who all gather at the library to discuss media projects and related events. The library also has consoles and games for play and hosts tournaments. All in all, its an excellent example of the kind of information on video games in libraries I'm looking for. Some of the descriptors are: Video Games, Clubs, Computers, Public Libraries, Programming, Computer Literacy, Adolescents, Access to Computers, Library Services, Workshops

I pick out the ones I like: video games, public libraries, adolescents

A search for video games and public libraries results in 2 hits. The original article and an article on video game circulation. An excellent resource, but I'm going to try an get a few more results. A search for video game and adolescent gets 115 results, which is a few too many. A search for video game, adolescent and library gets 5 results, most of which look very helpful and would more than likely be another good leaping point for a new search.

Comp 10: Internet

Gaming Initiative

The Gaming Inititative website is a facet of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library. They have a large and very well kept collection of modern as well as vintage video games, consoles and materials. All of which can be checked out. The University has a number of classes that use video games as a major portion of their syllabus and there are gaming groups and events that go on all the time. This is a wonderful example of an organization that has got the video game usage down to an art and is well received by its members and community.
Found via Google.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Database Comp - Academic Search Complete: Successive Fraction

For Academic Search Complete, I began by doing simple searches on the planned terms.

librar? - 486151
video gam? - 8247
gaming - 8141
gamer? - 1300

The largest output is from librar? so I start with that and add video gam?. This results in 195 articles. We're almost at a manageable level. A quick look at the results shows that the vast majority are relevant to the general question of video games in libraries, but obviously we have to narrow it down some more for a more specific question.

I add tournament as my last search term and get 16 results, all of which look to be good resources for many aspects of video game tournaments in libraries.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Comp 9: Image



Celano, L. (New York Times Photographer). [Photograph] Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/arts/30seni.html.

This photo is actually not in a library, but the article it illustrates talks a bit about them. It describes the increasing number of seniors who are getting into video games. Especially with the introduction of the Nintendo Wii, video games are no longer a very complicated and difficult to begin amusement. Some libraries have realized this and started senior Wii bowling leagues and the like. It is not only the young generation that can be drawn to the library by a couple of electronic devices.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Comp 8: Research Visual




I did a Google search on gaming in libraries education, that eventually led me to the above YouTube video. Syracuse University has sponsored a course on gaming in libraries, and the video is one example of one of their lessons. (The entire series is posted. I'm working my way through them.) This is a particularly useful one for those who don't know why anyone would want to support gaming in libraries, as well as people who support it themselves, but need a bit of help on convincing others they aren't off their rocker.

Nicholson, S. (2009, November 4).Gaming in Libraries Class Session 21 - Answering the Critics [video file]. Video posted to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coeAwZhITDg

Monday, November 2, 2009

Database Comp - JSTOR: Specific Facet

I began with a search of the terms I planned on using.

video game* - 9280
librar* - 118403
gamer* - 5080

Best results were from gamer*, which I think is the least likely to have a bunch of irrelevant articles show up on the search.

Combining video game* and gamer* gets a result count of 130, which looks much more relevant but is still a bit much to be digging through. Most of the results have to do with video games(except for one about the mating habits of tropical bats...what?), but I'm not seeing any focus on libraries or similar (for the obvious reason of it not being in the search yet)

Adding in the librar* search term cuts it down to 23 results, which is much better.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Database Comp - Dialog: Building Block

I did an ERIC search for my adventure in Dialog. I am looking for information on all aspects of video games in libraries.

My first step was a simple search for 'video games', 'gamers' and 'tournaments'. I got 406 results for video games, 27 for gamers and 316 for tournaments. I then went on as a sort of experiment to check my methods, to search for video games OR gamers OR tournaments, which gave me 725 results. More than the separate searches for each term gave.

I tried to get more specific search terms, since 735 results is a bit too many to search through. There were no results for 'video games in libraries' or 'educational video games'. I then combined the search for libraries and the search for video games or gamers, which resulted in a very manageable 40 results.

This was supposed to be using the building block strategy, but I didn't take it as far as I should have in that focus. I will attempt to return and give it another try and hopefully replace this posting.