I'm in the process of assembling a team of academic librarians who have expertise in gaming to work with me on my IMLS grant to create an alternate reality toolkit for libraries. In this first round of the research, the focus is on academic libraries.
There will be three parts to the study.
During the Fall/Winter of 2012, I will facilitate a Delphi study via e-mail with the panel. You will be asked to list the elements that you would find useful in a web-based tool that would help your library run an alternate reality game. You will then be provided with lists of criteria from all panelists and asked to rank each one. I will repeat this method until we have a list of criteria that the panel agrees to. I expect this will take approximately one hour per iteration, and it should take about four iterations. You will also provide us with a list of 10-15 items, services, or places within your library you would like patrons to discover, and provide a specific item or clue they can find in each place.
During July of 2013, I will provide you with a prototype of the Web-based tool for an Alternate Reality Game. You will customize the tool with the same information you provided to us in the fall. We expect this customization will take no more than 5 hours.
We will then ask you to test out the game as an orientation activity in August or September 2013 in a small or large scale. This can be a stand-alone activity where you give a URL to those interested, or can be a classroom-based activity as part of an orientation exercise. We would ask that you test it with at least 10 people in your library, but you may release it campus-wide if you wish. We will collect data about how the game is used, but we will collect no personal data about the players of the game. The data will help us understand how many people started the game, where people struggled, what percentage of people finished the game. You have the right to request that we not collect this data, or to have us delete the data and not use it after you see it. We will not connect the data in any public way to you or your library.
In the fall of 2013, I will contact you for a followup interview about the game. I expect this will take no more than one hour.
If you are interested, please contact me at
scott@scottnicholson.com for more detailed information. Let me know what kind of gaming you've done with your academic library in the past.
p.s. The future plan is that if this works, it will be broadened for all types of libraries, but the funder wanted us to focus on academic libraries first to make the prototype