Librarians should play more video games, says their Association

The American Library Association recently held their annual meeting in Washington and the focus of the gathering was how to help students who have learned many of their information gathering and analysis skills from video games apply that knowledge in the library.

The suggestions from the experts were striking: our friendly librarians should play more video games. However, solving the widening gap is not as easy as that as pointed out by Online Computer Library Center VP George M. Needham.

He pointed out that the students of today are “Digital Natives” while the librarians are simply “Digital Immigrants.” And much like the theory behind migration, the immigrants should be the one to adopt and not the other way around.

Likewise, author of book “Digital Game-Based Learning” Marc Prensky explained:

In geography – which is all but ignored these days – there is no reason that a generation that can memorize over 100 Pokemon characters with all their characteristics, history, and evolution can’t learn the names, populations, capitals and relationships of all the 101 nations in the world. It just depends on how it is presented.

Needham mentioned as well that he is not suggesting that college libraries “tear up the stacks to put in arcades,” but that they rethink many assumptions and teaching methods. He added:

The librarian as information priest is as dead as Elvis. The whole gestalt of the academic library has been set up like a church with various parts of a reading room acting like the stations of the cross, all leading up to the altar of the reference desk, where you make supplication and if you are found worthy, you will be helped.

Via Inside Higher ED

The American Library Association recently held their annual meeting in Washington and the focus of the gathering was how to help students who have learned many of their information gathering and analysis skills from video games apply that knowledge in the library.

The suggestions from the experts were striking: our friendly librarians should play more video games. However, solving the widening gap is not as easy as that as pointed out by Online Computer Library Center VP George M. Needham.

He pointed out that the students of today are “Digital Natives” while the librarians are simply “Digital Immigrants.” And much like the theory behind migration, the immigrants should be the one to adopt and not the other way around.

Likewise, author of book “Digital Game-Based Learning” Marc Prensky explained:

In geography – which is all but ignored these days – there is no reason that a generation that can memorize over 100 Pokemon characters with all their characteristics, history, and evolution can’t learn the names, populations, capitals and relationships of all the 101 nations in the world. It just depends on how it is presented.

Needham mentioned as well that he is not suggesting that college libraries “tear up the stacks to put in arcades,” but that they rethink many assumptions and teaching methods. He added:

The librarian as information priest is as dead as Elvis. The whole gestalt of the academic library has been set up like a church with various parts of a reading room acting like the stations of the cross, all leading up to the altar of the reference desk, where you make supplication and if you are found worthy, you will be helped.

Via Inside Higher ED