"Near the end of first tournament, the assistant director and I were talking to each other about the fantastic turnout. She said, 'We'll have to do this again someday.' A kid overheard her, but misunderstood her, and thought she had said, 'We'll have to do this again Sunday.' He shouted out to the entire room - 'We can do it again! Tomorrow!' That much enthusiasm for a Saturday afternoon spent at the library is something we strive to create!"

~Kieran Hixon,
John C. Fremont Library
Florence, CO

Gaming in a Small Rural Library: Tournaments, Collections, and a Gaming Corner

John C. Fremont Library, Florence, CO

The John C. Fremont Library district is a small, rural public library. The service district is about 5000 folks. The goal of the program is to create a welcoming place for youth in the library, as well as an appealing reason to come in the door. Under other management and in a different building, only two kids were allowed in the library at a time, and there was only one shelf of Young Adult books for them. It was time for the library to forge a new relationship with the community, and gaming is a part of it.

Running the Program

Inspired by a post from Jenny Levine's the Shifted Librarian blog, Kieran Hixon, Office and Tech Services, rolled his chair back and looked in the director's office and said, "Boss, can I hold a gaming tournament?" She said to go ahead, but there wasn't any money for it. Requesting equipment loans from people in the community was the jumping off point.

Thirty kids showed up for the first gaming event, one of the best turnouts for a program back then. When staff saw that the kids were excited and eager to participate, that's when they really got serious.

Currently, the assistant director and Hixon plan and run gaming tournaments at the library every other month. To date they have also partnered with the school and others in our area to unleash gaming on the world (or at least, their county).

For tournaments, the library usually has two or three gaming stations: one big one with a projector and one or two on televisions. Normally, the library closes Saturday at 2:00PM, so gaming tournaments are scheduled for 2:30PM. Ideally, contestants are signed up the week before the tournament, but a handful of folks inevitably need to sign up at the door. Once all the cards have been checked for fines, the tournament begins.

In the past, participants played Burnout, Madden (bad choice), Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) , and a Naruto game; current favorites include Guitar Hero, Rock Band, DDR, a Tony Hawk game, and some sort of fighting game.

Madden didn't work because of the length of play. In spite of changing settings to make it as quick as possible, it is too long for group play.

Hixon uses a simple bracket system to record who will play who. Contestants are allowed to sign up for any or all of the games offered, but if a contestant is playing one game when his/her name is called for another, it is up to the player to decide which s/he will forfeit.

There is always food available. Most of the time, the players have an audience, but there's plenty of milling around, too. Or, in other words, they come, they play, they make a mess, they leave happy.

Facility

The library is a 4000 square foot building with a little corner in the back that we have decided to use for gaming. There is one television, an XBox, a Game Cube, and a PS2 in the gaming corner.

Marketing the Tournament

Even though the tournaments are open to all ages, teenagers (and usually the ones that might never come to the library otherwise) are the frequent participants.

Literacy Connection

In order to compete in the tournament, participants must be a library card holder with no fines. It is amazing how many cards get issued and how many fines get paid two hours before the tournament!

Videogame collections that include a balance of games across genres (action, puzzle, adventure, role-playing, sports, and others) provide a variety of literacy applications for patrons. Adventure, puzzle, and role-playing games require both visual and information literacy skills in order to interpret and evaluate the information on screen and in the story. Sports and action genres rely heavily on visual literacy skills, they require players to interpret and apply the information provided in order to succeed. Videogames in most genres require players to think critically about what information they need to succeed in the game. They must evaluate if they have enough information or if they needed to seek out additional sources both in-game resources like tutorials and tips and out-of-game resources like websites, guides, and other players.

Players engaging in the tournaments offered have the added incentive of competition to improve their literacy skills. The players in other library game tournaments identify when they need more information to improve their gameplay. In order to gain the needed information players seek out a variety of sources in different formats: peers; strategies guides; online sites. After players have conducted these searches, they organize that information; both formally by writing it down and informally through repetition and practice.

Based on the information and strategies found, players evaluate and assess their results to determine if they have enough to be prepared for the tournament. If they need to they refine their search and continue pouring through pages of text and online videos to prepare. Through this practice of print, visual, and information literacy skills, players improve their gameplay.

Funding for Tournaments $0.00

Intially, all games and consoles were borrowed . Hixon believed that if he library could just pull it off once, success would follow. Kids, and parents gladly donated videogame systems, games, controllers, and a television.

Cash prizes are issued to the winners. Prize money came from two sources. The library has a wee bit of money set aside for teen programs, generally used for snacks. If there are funds left over from what is budgeted to spend for each tournament, it is added to the prize money pile.

The library attempted entry fees once, but it was too hard to see the kids who didn't have a dollar just watch and be bummed out.

The library also asks for donations from the community. In early 2009, a "Donate" button was placed on the library homepage, to facilitate donations via PayPal.

Impact

Holding these tournaments and making games available for check out draws in patrons who might not ever think to set foot in a library. More than that, they even seem to get excited about being here and feel comfortable coming back to the library -- heck, some of them have even been known to check out a book! Kids come to the library and ask when the next tournament will be and what games will be featured.

Other organizations call us for help with videogame tournaments. We've had good turnouts for the tournaments, and the community keeps asking for more, so we call that success!

Tournament attendance incited development of a circulating videogame collection. There isn't a video game or movie rental store in our town, so we decided to circulate games. The library circulates about 160 titles for PS2, PS3, PSP, X-Box, X-Box 360, Wii, Nintendo DS, and Game Cube. Currently, the videogame collection is the second highest circulating collection in the library. The goal of the providing the collection is to offer access to videogames -- there isn't a videogame rental store in our area (actually there isn't even a movie rental store in town). The collection creates an appealing reason to come in the door.

The games the kids like circ about once every 4-5 days, but even the games they aren't interested in circ at least once in an 8 week period. A collection in which all materials circulate indicate that the collection is just too small, considering the interest in it. These circulation stats were shared in a budget meeting and used to advocate for more money for the collection in 2008.

Starting the Videogame Collection

An older woman donated an Atari and a box of cartridges and a Sega Genesis and a box of cartridges. It was tempting to use them for play in library gaming tournaments, but instead, Hixon sold them on eBay and used the profit to put up prizes.

Used games are purchased from Gamestop and from local patrons willing to part with titles (this is an unadvertised service).

Managing the Collection

In order to check out games, patrons must a library card with no fines on the account. Games check out for one week - with a 3 day grace period and $1/day late fee with a $5 cap. Currently, there is a limit of three videogames per card.

Maintaining the Collection

A local person has a machine that takes out most scratches from discs, and cleans ours free. Games are amazingly durable; less than half a dozen games have been discarded due to to irreparable damage in the past two years of circulation.

Items marked "lost" have often been checked out to someone; particular items have been checked out for so long they are considered lost. Replacements are considered, if the person who checked it out 'fesses up and pays (or cuts a deal with billing). If an item is checked out and the person NEVER comes back, a replacemnt is considered.

Items considered "stolen" just get swiped with no check out. If an item gets swiped, it isn't replaced unless a replacement donation is made. Generally, very little gets replaced; why replace Burnout when you can get Burnout Revenge? There are some games that don't circulate, so the library can have them in time for tournaments: DDR, Guitar Hero III and Rock Band for the Wii are for in-house use.

At this point, controller circulation is still under consideration.

Marketing the Collection

The empty boxes promote and display the available collection. The collection located near the gaming corner, though, it moved around a bit at first. All DVDs CDs and Video Game discs are filed in shoeboxes behind the circ desk, and the empty boxes are shelved. This is time and staff intensive. The Fort Collins Library in northern Colorado just moved to RFID and donated self checkout machines and security gates, and the The nearby Pueblo Library discarded locking cases in late February, and donated them, so now discs will go back in their boxes and into locking cases.

Funding the Collection: $2000 to date

Year One: $500 for the first year

Year Two: $1500

Resources:

For more information, please contact Kieran Hixon at bfhenboy@gmail.com.

Theft Notice

Videogame Collection List

Flickr photostream including gaming program photos.