Go Spotting: Go in the Library

The entire Spring 2013 issue of Library Trends magazine is devoted to how to develop gaming programs in libraries. The authors agree that with libraries seeking a relevant connection to Internet-savvy young users, games can draw young people in. Various authors discuss the merits of video, tabletop, card, and role-playing formats. Among them is Thomas Maluck (right), a teen services librarian at Richland Library in Columbia, SC. In an article entitled “Play It Loud,” Maluck describes Go Your Own Way, a program he developed after seeing the AGF booth at the American Library Association convention in New Orleans in 2011. “Go encouraged positive parent-child communication,” he writes. “In one session, as a child learned the rules and played a practice game, his mother tried to kibitz over his shoulder. Her well-intentioned advice was based on a logical understanding of an aggressive, checkers-like strategy, but . . . the child’s understanding of the game was more advanced than his mother’s. Staff invited the mother to play and watched them both develop personal strategies and counterstrategies over the course of several games.” Although Library Trends is published by Johns Hopkins Press, it is not freely available. You’ll need access to Project MUSE; try your local public or university library. It’s an interesting issue.
– Roy Laird