03.06.09
Playing Games in Nebraska
People have been commenting about the ironic juxtaposition of the two top stories in this week’s edition of American Libraries Direct:
#1 Nebraska Auditor Cries Foul on Gaming: A 10-minute YouTube video posted by the Nebraska Library Commission to announce the purchase of Rock Band and Dance Dance Revolution resulted—roughly a year later—in an audit in which Nebraska Auditor of Public Accounts Mike Foley concluded that “the purchase of gaming equipment is a questionable use of public funds,” and that “using social websites and gaming equipment on State time and with State computers . . . appears to be an inappropriate use of public funds.”
#2 ALA Releases Gaming Tool Kit: In recognition of the increasing value of gaming to literacy improvement, ALA—with assistance from a $1 million grant from the Verizon Foundation—has developed the “Librarian’s Guide to Gaming: An Online Toolkit for Building Gaming @ your library.” The toolkit includes a wide range of resources, contributed by expert gaming librarians across the country, to help librarians create, fund, and evaluate gaming experiences in the library.
Coincidentally, these two stories were the two top stories of the week, but their appearance together was also a deliciously subtle slap at the rather shallow judgment of one Nebraska auditor and the unidentified taxpayer who initiated the audit, who both might better have turned their attention elsewhere to look for government waste. Libraries are notorious for their wise use of public funds and for squeezing more bang out of a buck than any other institution.
While one reader told me she worried that the placement of the stories one after the other might offend the Verizon Foundation, which has been so instrumental in supporting library gaming initiatives, others have assured me that the second story reads like a rebuttal to the first and a great counterpoint to two barely informed people who haven’t a clue about 1) the value of games as learning tools, and 2) the good stewardship that libraries in Nebraska and across the nation have shown for every support dollar they are able to obtain.
Dale Lipschultz, literacy officer in the ALA Office for Literacy and Outreach Services, sent me an e-mail immediately after AL Direct mailed, saying, “I love the juxtaposition of these two news stories! This made my day.” She agreed that the appearance of the two stories together was fortuitous, and gave the appearance that ALA was way ahead of the game, so to speak.
It is unfortunate that library gaming got a bad rap in Nebraska, but the state’s librarians know what to do. Good information and an afternoon with a group of young learners @ their library just might just turn Mr. Foley and the irritated taxpayer around.
Sean Fitzpatrick said,
March 7, 2009 at 8:49 am
I spoke to Nebraska Library Commission Director Rob Wagner yesterday to follow up on the audit story before we run it in our April issue. Wagner told me he was really pleased with the positive response from the library community. The “bad rap” was bad, sure: media sources in Nebraska picked up Foley’s press release and ran with it, publishing the sort of negative stories Foley seems to have hoped they would. But a horde of Nebraskans saw through that and spoke out in favor of their libraries. Then the story got picked up by us and others in the library and gaming communities, which led to national conversations. So the windfall from all the negative press was a big boost for library gaming everywhere–another level of irony.