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Gen Con Update: Gaming in the Library

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It’s been awhile since I got to say anything new (those reviews keep coming in, and are keeping me busy) but I had the chance to attend Gen Con’s trade day events this year, and what I learned is that there are a lot of librarians and educators out there trying to figure out how to incorporate games into their libraries. While I don’t work in a public library anymore, I knew this was a trend, and one that has gained a lot of ground over the past several years. The question of should libraries have games seems to have settled down (either you think it’s part of your library’s mission to serve gamers or you don’t– at Gen Con I am sure you can guess what side of that issue the professionals are on) and now it comes down to issues of logistics, collection development, and use. While there will always be enthusiastic videogamers, and there is a committed community of roleplayers, what libraries seems to have seen a noticeable uptick in is tabletop gaming (board games and card games, specifically). While there are a lot of specialized and complicated board games and card games, there are also a lot of games with broad appeal for kids and families. Even if a library decides that a game collection should stay on site, and has to choose just a few games, it can be a good way to engage people with each other and get them to spend time at the library, making it a familiar and safe space.

One session I went to suggested pairing games with fiction and nonfiction titles. The presenter was really talking about games for small children, but I think this is a great idea. There are a lot of horror-related games out there, some with great literary connections, and while gamers aren’t necessarily readers, given the number of extremely detailed rulebooks out there, it is clear that they will read for a cause, or if they develop interest in a topic that fuels their knowledge for the game. One example of a clear connection between a and literature was a heavily publicized game from LoneShark Games called Apocrypha. This is a pre-apocalyptic game that seems to have some flexibility built in to how you play it, with a good dose of the supernatural, and cards and scenarios written by some pretty great authors, including Patrick Rothfuss. You could take this so many ways, with its gameplay, content, theme, and writers all offering some pretty interesting pathways to a variety of other authors and media (I did not get to demo or see a demo of this game, so I’m going by what I saw on outward examination). Obviously this isn’t going to be a family fun game like Operation, but there are plenty of opportunities with the variety of games out there to draw connections between games, literature, and other media, that can wake an interest in any of those things for people who might see reading (or gaming) as something “not for them”. The key is that here is a new way to make the library an engaging place for the general public, gamers, and horror lovers who might be feeling disenfranchised, and connect them with a new way to enjoy storytelling and approach literacy.

Being one of those people who falls into the “not a serious gamer” crowd, I’m mostly unfamiliar with some of the new things out now and how they match up to what already exists, what’s fun, and the connection different games might have to literature or other media. I’d love to see suggestions from those of you who are gamers and know your stuff, about games you think are cool that could tie in to books or other media.

North Carolina School District Bans Literary Classic “Invisible Man”

No, not that Invisible Man.

 Yes, we write about the horror genre here, but the book under question is this  one:

Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953 and is counted among the top 100 novels of the 20th century by the Modern Library, was just banned in Randolph County, North Carolina.

It’s a different kind of horrifying than what we usually talk about here, although the confusion is understandable, I guess– even Google Books makes mistakes (link here). Invisible Man addresses many of the social issues African-Americans faced during the middle of the 20th century, especially in the South. Rather than physical invisibility, Ellison’s narrator describes himself as socially invisible, and is a part of the “underground”. This is the book that the school board in Randolph County, North Carolina, voted 5-2 to remove from school libraries and reading lists (link here).

Banned Books week starts September 22. That’s Monday. This incident will, I’m sure, give Invisible Man some new visibility.

It’s been interesting following the news regarding banned and challenged books since last year’s Banned Books Week. Alan Moore’s graphic novel Neonomicon was removed from the library of Greenville, South Carolina in December of 2012; The Diary of Anne Frank was challenged in Michigan (it stayed); Marjane Satrapi’s incredible graphic novel Persepolis was removed from the Chicago Public Schools to public outrage (and restored); the anti-war manga classic Barefoot Gen was banned and then restored to libraries in a school district in Japan; and emails revealed that the former governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, had attempted to influence the textbook adoption process to prevent A People’s History of the United States from being taught in Indiana schools (not that that ever would have happened here anyway) and teacher education classes; and an Alabama senator attempted to remove Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye from state reading lists. With this week’s removal of The Invisible Man from North Carolina schools, that makes seven times I’ve seen banned and challenged books make the news, and there are so many more cases out there that I’ve never heard of, or that haven’t been reported to anyone at all.  And none of that includes the many other cases of censorship around the world.

To learn more about Banned Books Week, visit the website for Project Censored here and the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week here. And to discover more about banned books and media visit our Pinterest board on Banned Books here. Trust me, I worked hard on it and it is awesome. As for the kids of Randolph County, I’ll quote them Stephen King:

Don’t get mad, get even… Run, don’t walk, to the nearest nonschool library or to the local bookstore and get whatever it is they banned. Read whatever they’re trying to keep out of your eyes and your brain, because that’s exactly what you need to know.

 

Well said, Mr. King.

Not everyone, everywhere, has that choice. This week is a great time to celebrate that in this country, you can, in fact, do exactly that.

Awesomeness in Ebook Publisher/Library Agreements

In Internet time, I’m extremely late to report it, but awesomeness has occurred. The Douglas County Library System in Colorado, which has been working with alternatives to the licensing of ebooks  from publishers (also called purchasing them outright from publishers). And this week DCL signed a contract (called the Common Understanding) with Smashwords, in which they purchased 10,000 books outright. Califa, a library consortium in California, which has also been exploring alternatives to licensing ebooks through OverDrive, is expected to follow suit. Read Peter Brantley’s piece on this at PWxyz, where he does an excellent and thorough job of going over the whole thing. Hopefully other publishers are paying attention!