Come learn about Gaming & Gamification in Libraries - from professor Scott Nicholson

We have a short-notice opportunity coming up on Wed, Dec. 10th to hear about the possibilities of gaming in libraries and the gamification of information literacy.

Scott Nicholson is an Associate Professor at the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University and the director of the Because Play Matters game lab. He has written research papers on meaningful gamification, games in libraries, online education, and data mining.   He is the author of Everyone Plays at the Library: Creating Great Gaming Experiences for All Ages (here is the NLB's copy) and the designer of two board games - Going, Going, GONE!, and Tulipmania 1637.  He also edited the Spring 2013 issue of Library Trends which focused on "The Impact of Gaming on Libraries."  If you have Project Muse, you can read the issue online -- click here.  Follow him on Twitter here: @snicholson

Updated 30-Nov: Chapter 3 of Scott's book is now available free: http://scottnicholson.com/pubs/conceptualmodel.pdf
The chapter presents a model of game experiences that he developed in order to bring together games of all types.  Instead of focusing on a game platform, it focuses on the experiences players have in the game.

Chapter 1 is free on the publisher's website: http://books.infotoday.com/books/Everyone-Plays-At-The-Library/SampleChapter.shtml

Scott is coming to Singapore to do workshops on gamification with Singapore government entities -- and has time to come and talk to us (and have dinner afterwards, with any who are free) on Dec 10th.

I attended one of Scott's workshops on gaming in libraries at the annual ALA (American Library Association) conferences two years ago -- and it was very enlightening -- not to mention fun!

Linda Twitchett has offered her Senior Library at the Australian School as a venue -- 5:00 for a 5:30 pm start.  

If you are interested, please let us know via this Google Form (to know the right amount of wine and snacks).

NOTE:  Feel free to bring others along.  They don't have to be librarians.  While the talk will be aimed at gaming in libraries, Scott is an expert on gaming in general.

Red Dot selected books - looking back and looking forward

I just did a personal blog post on the Red Dot books, trying to highlight ones we considered, but didn't ultimately choose, because of the devil of the balancing act of just 8 books in 4 categories.  Read more here: http://libedge.blogspot.sg/2014/11/on-reading-and-balance-in-four-8-book.html

Other committee members are encouraged to write their own assessment of titles and the process -- which can be posted here.

Looking ahead, I've set up four Goodreads lists for collecting titles to consider for next year.  Please feel free to add whatever.

• 2015-2016: Early Years: Longlist
• 2015-2016: Younger Readers longlist
• 2015-2016: Older Readers longlist
• 2015-2016: Mature Readers longlist

Red Dot 2014-2015 Posters & Stickers ready

Thanks to my very creative library assistant, Ernie, here are some posters for the four categories of the Red Dots, plus some shortlist stickers.  Go to the Red Dot Promotional Materials page to find them.

And if anyone makes any posters or promotional materials of their own, please let us know -- and I'll put them up on the Red Dot website.  The more, the merrier.

There's a good choice of professional development coming up....

Our Regional PD page just got some updates.

• 21st Century Learning Conference
• 2014:  Hong Kong, Dec 11-13
• The School Librarian Connection
• 2014:  Hong Kong - Renaissance College,  Fri/Sat Nov 21-22
• International School of Kuala Lumpur (ISKL)
• 2015: Kevin Hennah's Cultural Weeding Workshop / Follett Destiny Workshop, Jan 22-23
• Librarians Knowledge Sharing Workshop & Job-Alike
• 2013: Kuala Lumpur - Alice Smith School, Oct 5-6
• 2014: Brunei - Jerudong International School, Feb 20-21
• 2015: Bangkok - Shrewsbury International School, Fri/Sat Feb 6-7
• Singapore American School
• 2013: SAS Children's Literature Conference, Feb 1-3
• 2015: iCreate Conference, Fri eve/Sat Jan 23-24
• Centre for International Education, UWCSEA East
• 2015: Practices to Engage and Empower Readers and Writers - with Penny Kittle, Sat Feb 7
• 2015: Reading Projects, Reimagined Workshop: Student Driven Conferences Conferences to Deepen Critical Thinking - with Dan Feigelson, Sun Feb 8 
• 2015: Teach-Up Inaugural Mini-conference, Sat Mar 7
• 2015: Multilingualism Conference, Fri pre-conf May 15, Sat/Sun May 16-17

You can go to KL in January and brush up on your Destiny knowledge (with Jenna Emerson & co), as well as see the famous Kevin Hennah.  Or you stay home and attend a conference on creativity and children's literature.  Our own SAS is hosting four fabulous creators -- Candace Fleming & Susan Campbell Bartoletti, both known for their upper primary/middle school narrative non-fiction, and Eric Rohman & Todd Parr, authors and illustrators for the younger end. 

Then in early February you can go to Bangkok to hear Bob Stein, director of the utterly fascinating Institute for the Future of the Book and a specialist in electronic publishing, especially in the realm of education, at the Librarians Knowledge Sharing Workshop & Job-Alike.   Though that same weekend our campus, UWCSEA East is holding weekend workshops with book-loving consultants Penny Kittle and Dan Feigelson. 

Barb, Nadine, and I will be missing the next network meeting as we are off that afternoon to Hong Kong for the School Librarian Connection Fri/Sat conference, which looks to be great fun.

Is anyone planning to go to Hong Kong for the December 21st Century Learning conference?

Red Dot 2014-2015 - shortlists announced -- as well as process changes....

UPDATE:  Website is ready -- see reddotawards.com

At last!  After a lot of reading and online discussion, we have some shortlists.

Here are the lists as they stand now -- via Goodreads:

Early Years - Goodreads shelf
Younger Readers - Goodreads shelf
Older Readers - Goodreads shelf

Mature Readers - Goodreads shelf

If anyone knows a book here and feels it is misplaced or misguided, please shout out right now.  Last chance to make another suggestion! If I don't hear any complaints by Tuesday, I will update the reddotawards.com website -- for the world to see.

Many thanks to the people on the ISLN committee:  Kate Brundage (SAS), Barb Reid (UWC East), Pam Males (UWC Dover), Linda Twitchett (AISS), Meg Johnston (AISS), Anamika Bhati (Eton House), Susanne Clower (UWC East), Angie Erickson (UWC Dover), and Kim Klein (SAIS).  And Ben Farr (TTS) for being an unofficial member....

As the process took longer than we'd hoped, the committee would like to propose that VOTING be extended this year (every year?).  We usually have it open for one week in early March, after which schools know their own voting results and we publish a country-wide tally.  The Readers Cup list is usually announced shortly thereafter, whereby 4-6 of the 8 shortlist titles are chosen for the students to study and compete on.

In 2015 we suggest the Red Dot voting run from 1 March to 1 May -- so schools can vote at their convenience -- and the Singapore overall winners will be announced on May 3.  We also suggest that the Readers Cup committee announce their subsets of the Red Dot shortlists earlier, e.g., Dec. 1st. 

We also intend to shift our timing to announce the NEXT shortlist on June 1st every year, from now on.  The longlist for next year has already been started, thanks to so many great titles considered for this year.

If anyone has any comments on these changes or would like to be on next year's committee, please let us know either in the Comments to this blog post or directly to the Executive Committee by emailing librarynetwork@gmail.com.