"Absolutely everything was the same...except I could fly"

I've really enjoyed this week, actually. I've been a gamer as long as I can remember, mainly with home consoles (NES, GameBoy Colour, GameCube, DS, and Wii are all systems that I've had in my house at one point or another! Clearly a Nintendo girl!), and a little PC gaming, too. I vividly remember my first exposure to the Sims and the instant addiction I felt! I love the kinds of games where you get to build your own worlds and see if you succeed (the Tycoon series, any Sim series), and adventure games (Titanic: Adventure Out of Time was a favourite). Very early experiences with gaming included the Math Rescue! games (with the Master of Mischief!) and Zeliard (what a Zelda rip-off!). So, clearly, I've had a LOT of gaming exposure. And I've enjoyed that trip down memory lane :) But online worlds I've avoided thus far. Mainly because I figure I wouldn't get any work done if I signed on to one (all my games and consoles do not come with me to university, by the way, otherwise I would be in serious trouble!), but also a lack of exposure, too. I personally don't know a lot of people who play these online games, and I think if I did I would be more motivated to try them. But another reason that I'm glad that this topic has come up in this class, besides my love of games, is the fact that gaming, I feel, is finally being recognized in the academic and information communities as a valid platform for education, learning, fun, and, yes, serious academia. A plot line in many of these games is as rich as any you could fine in many classic works of literature and films, for example. Without investigating too much into the matter, games may also reveal things about society based on which games are popular and enduring (why are first-person shooting games so popular? Why would something like the Sims be popular when it's hardly different than real life, and perhaps even more mundane?). So it is possible to educate using games and virtual worlds, everyone from children learning their ABCs and numbers on age appropriate games to scholars hearing a lecture via online worlds like Second Life. And that being said, I think that’s where the greatest potential for libraries to get involved lies. I like the idea of having gaming competitions and gaming librarians, as shown in a few of our case studies this week. Perhaps selections of age-appropriate children’s games should be featured in the display areas in libraries, and promoting gaming competitions to help bring youth in to the library. These times would THEN be good opportunities to promote the library’s online presence, not just in a virtual world but any of their online platforms. Hence, I don’t really see libraries using online virtual games in the same way they might use blogs or wikis (which can be used more as services offered by the library), but I see games as an outreach method in order to bring people IN to the library. Having people then visit the Second Life Info Island is a bonus! I think we’re really just beginning to explore the possibilities for libraries to use online gaming worlds and it will be very exciting to see where it all goes! To end, I'll point you all to clips to a couple of my favourite shows talking about Second Life and World of Warcraft: The Office: on Second Life http://youtube.com/watch?v=U3d_fqDcN1s (The Office also had an episode where they were playing Call of Duty, but I can't find that clip!)

South Park: on World of Warcraft http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32-bKioNK40&feature=related (it's South Park, so beware of language/crudeness!)