Everyone Plays at the Library: Creating Great Gaming Experiences for All Ages

Citation

Czarnecki, K. (2011), "Everyone Plays at the Library: Creating Great Gaming Experiences for All Ages", Library Review, Vol. 60 No. 4, pp. 344-345. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242531111127884

This book does a great job setting the foundation for the inclusivity of gaming. Not only the variety of games themselves mentioned and reviewed (board, card, online, console, role playing, etc.) but what gaming has to do with libraries. Through the author's exploration, we come to find that gaming is not specific to a particular library or age group, but is applicable in relevant ways to all.

Nicholson frames the dialogue with pertinent questions in the first chapter such as, “What does gaming have to do with literacy?” followed by concise and helpful answers. If you are looking to start a gaming program or even further develop an existing one, this book is a flexible resource that covers both ends of the spectrum and information in between which are described by the author as the five archetypes of gaming.

These archetypes are at the crux of this valuable resource. Early on in the book, Nicholson discusses the library gaming experience and illustrates this concept to explore how “participants, spectators, library staff, and resources […] interact” (Nicholson, 2010, p. 24). Out of this model, there are five elements that develop what Nicholson calls the gaming experience archetypes: social, narrative, action, knowledge, and strategy. The model and archetypes are useful for libraries to “consider the gaming experience they want to facilitate and then select the games to match” (Nicholson, 2010, p. 23). This way of looking at planning a gaming program aligns the activity closer to library goals such as planning and strategic thinking, bringing more people through the doors, or encouraging interaction.

The middle part of this book discusses the five archetypes at length, and includes a profile of specific games to match the experience. Some of the information included in the profiles comprises experience from the player's perspective, types of interaction between players, and skills developed when playing. All of this is very useful information for libraries, especially when needing to relate gaming to the library's mission and purpose. The games included as examples are board, card, online, console, and role‐playing games. Even if you consider yourself a gamer, you will likely be introduced to new titles throughout this book, since the author covers such a wide variety of games. Mainstream games such as chess or scrabble are not disparaged, but are mentioned as the building blocks of many libraries' gaming experiences as well as relating to a more expanded list of games that may be new to your library.

The latter third of Everyone Plays at the Library, puts all of the above information together and looks at such detailed components of the experience including the library space used, how to prepare staff and volunteers in ways you might not have thought of before, and engaging with the larger community through marketing and partnerships. Subheadings are clearly listed throughout the chapters so it is easy to peruse the book for a topic of particular interest. All of the information in this last section of the book helps to further shape the players' experiences in line with the planning undertaken.

The book ends with a brief chapter on assessment and justification, both important components in sustaining a library program and giving the patrons an important voice in the process of developing a service. Gaming resources such as books on gaming in libraries and game reviews are also discussed.

Everyone Plays at the Library is a solid and yet flexible resource for those wanting to grasp the basics of gaming and libraries, as well as those looking to further increase the depth and breadth of an already existing program.