Next Techsource Session: Gaming in the Library: From Collections to Services and Beyond

By Lisa Hinchcliff from UIUC

Gaming Initiative:

Collections
Games are an important text of our culture, trying to create a historic collection today
Needs assessment
Funding: used media and monograph money, Friends of Library, donations
Collection Storage: anything that would fit into lockable DVD case is on shelf, Guitar Hero guitar is at desk
Access and Use Policies: 1 week checkout (same as movies)
Licensing/Publisher Relations: game system games not a problem, PC games are a problem because of registration

Archiving
Game as Object (the game itself) vs. Game as Experience (game as people played it)
Vintage Games Donations
Emulation and Emulators (code)
XBox Live and Nintendo Virtual Console

Teaching and Research
Interdisciplinary and Multidisciplinary
Classroom Use and Support (games on reserve, loaded on library computers)

Outreach
Gaming News Blog
Gaming Nights
Librarians as Researchers and Teachers
Collaborations on Archival and Use Standards
Campus Gaming in Learning Symposium in Fall 2008

Summary: UIUC does cool stuff.