Last Friday I got paid to game!



Ok, so I have to be honest, I've never really considered myself to be a big gamer. I like to game, in small doses, usually prefering things that don't take a lot of time to complete. I've done mostly table top stuff like D&D or general board/card games. When we were still in college and without a t.v. my husband used to play Everquest a lot. I loved to watch him play but never did get into playing it myself. I think it's a dexterity problem. I'm just not really good with the whole manuavering with a mouse and keyboard. And even with the table top games, I enjoy it but more as a social activity and have never really turned to it as a past time, usually prefering a good movie or book instead.

But this workshop rocked! It was led by Adrienne Butler, Youth Services Consultant at the Oklahoma Department of Libraries. ODL has purchased several gaming consoles and are planning to start a loan program where libraries can borrow the consoles to do their own gaming programs. There were only about ten people at our workshop. Many of the librarians who attended were from very small rural libraries who could really benifit from such a program since purchasing gaming equipment can be quite expensive.

Adrienne started her workshop off with a lot of factual information about gaming. Her intention, I think was to provide us with the necessary "ammo" to approach our library administration, boards, city administration...whoever it is we need to persuade to support gaming programs. After years of successful library gaming events, it's frustrating to me that many librarians still need to validate these programs to their administration but it's probably because many still don't know how valuable gaming can be as an activity not just for teens but for all ages. In fact, Adrienne noted that the fastest growing group of gamers out there are women over forty.

Anyway, back to the gaming workshop. I got to play a Wii! If you had asked me about a Wii two weeks ago I would have probably said "Oh yeah, that game thing that's all over YouTube with the old people bowling and stuff." Now I've played a Whii and I want one so bad that my husband is pulling in a favor from a friend in his hometown in New York, who works at Wal-Mart and can get a Whii for a discount.
Baseball was the best. Couldn't bat worth a darn but I could pitch like a fire-cracker but I still got my butt kicked by my co-worker Cindy Yell who told me AFTER we got done playing that she was a softball player all through high school.

Although the Wii was definitely the superstar of the day, Adrienne also had several other consoles for us to try, an Xbox, Gamecube and a PlayStation. The picture provided is of me playing guitar for the game Rock Band (which apparently will be available for Wii soon). Providing vocals is the lovely Beth Degeer. She sings like Julie Andrews. Not pictured is Cindy Yell. She got to play the drums. I sucked. I was booed off stage in a matter of seconds because I didn't realize I was supposed to strum while pressing the keys on the guitar. Like I said, I have dexterity problems.

Although we may have spent most of the workshop playing games, the experience was very valuable since it allowed those of us not familiar with gaming consoles to get a sense of how they worked, what games went to what and what equipment was necessary for each one. I also really appreciate ODL's endeavor to provide gaming equipment on loan. It's going to make all the difference, I'm sure, when it comes to encouraging other libraries to provide gaming programs. Personally, I would love to do a multi-generational program where people of all ages come in and teach each other how to play different games.

Adrienne is going to be presenting a similar workshop at ODL next week. Cindy and I are planning to attend even though it's likely to be of similar format to the one we went to last Friday. The only exception is that this workshop will have two other librarians in Oklahoma who have been doing gaming programs for awhile so it will be interesting to hear their perspectives.