In the most recent round of the IMLS National Leadership Grant announcements, Syracuse University, in partnership with MIT and the ALA, received a 150K grant to create an alternate reality game toolkit for libraries. The project is led by Scott Nicholson, director of the Because Play Matters game lab at the iSchool at Syracuse.
The grant will fund the first round of prototype development on the ARG toolkit. This development will involve a group of 10 academic librarians and Jenny Levine from the ALA through a Delphi study to develop a set of needs for the libraries, and then Nicholson will work with the Education Arcade at MIT to develop a prototype over the spring and summer.
The libraries will then customize the games and test the games in Fall 2013 as part of the library orientation activities.
If the project is successful, then additional funding will be sought to widen the base to all types of games and develop the game for distribution through the ALA to all libraries.
More information is at
http://becauseplaymatters.com/blog/2012/9/20/national-leadership-grant-from-imls-to-make-an-arg-toolkit.html