GameRT is happy to support the “Empowering & Innovating Games-based Library Services: National Best Practices for Gaming Collections & Programming” grant project by Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s Library Services Team and Washington State Library. The project received an IMLS grant and we have an update from them below! GameRT will support this project by sharing their project updates, posting calls for participation, and sharing resources.
Hello, brilliant colleagues!
As many of you might be aware, the Wisconsin State Library Agency and the Washington State Library are currently engaged in a three-year National Leadership Grants for Libraries project being funded by the Institute for Museum & Library Services; the project involves robust collaboration from numerous partners and subject matter experts in the “games + learning + libraries” space as we aim to do unprecedented, cutting-edge research, evaluation, and resource development surrounding games-based library services.
- For more information about our project’s schedule and deliverables, you can check our blog post here. You can also check out the grant award directly here
We’re confident our project will result in a new and invaluable foundation of scholarship and professional education related to games-based library services!!
We are currently in phase #1 of the project, with Field Day Learning Games (housed within the Wisconsin Center for Education Research of UW-Madison) acting as our research lead. Right now we are conducting a comprehensive literature review (of both historic and contemporary scholarship) of papers, journals, articles, blog posts, data, research, etc., specifically related to “games & libraries” and/or “games-based library services“.
HOW CAN YOU HELP?: Please email me directly attaching ANY papers (.pdfs and .docs are preferable), literature, links to online resources/papers, DOI numbers, etc., related to “games & libraries”. It could be something you’ve written yourself, read at some point, or might just be generally aware of; as long as it fits into the “games + libraries” scholarship space, I’m interested!
- Please also send this onto any other colleagues, networks, or email lists you might be aware of who would have some knowledge in this space and could contribute literature! The more the merrier. They can reach out to me directly at [email protected].
We are ravenously harvesting as much literature as possible at this point; we will then be conducting a thorough review, where we will also draw some evaluative conclusions in order to write a paper/research report that will highlight existent or emergent needs/challenges related to games-based library services — and, most importantly, how we can overcome them!
ALSO – After our literature review is completed (and using whatever we’ve discovered), we will then conduct rigorous nationwide surveying (mainly of library professionals) about what types of games-based library services “training” they’ve received (if any), and, more importantly, what types of games-based library services they offer to their community. If you or someone you know would like to participate in our eventual nationwide research, PLEASE FILL OUT THIS SHORT FORM. We will be in touch later!
Thank you so much for your help in developing a better understanding of games-based library services for our field! Let me know if you have any questions, need clarification about anything, or would like to collaborate in some other way.
Chris Baker
Public Library Consultant, Games & Learning Consultant
Library Services Team, Division of Libraries and Technology
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction