The Ubiquitous Librarian

Upcoming Library User Studies Forum

I’m involved with a project that is coming together nicely. ASERL, the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries in collaboration with Auburn U and unofficially Georgia Tech, is hosting a one day event about user studies. More info here.

It will set you back $175, but it’s a new fiscal year, so spend the money! The date is approaching: Thursday, July 31, 2008. Right now it is limited to ASERL schools, but it goes nationwide on Tuesday (July 8th). We’ve capped it at 100 participants so hopefully we can keep it intimate, unlike those huge ballrooms at ALA.

I am really happy about the speakers we've got:

Bonnie MacEwan (Auburn)
Crit Stuart (ARL, formally of Georgia Tech)
John Law (ProQuest)
Bob Fox (Georgia Tech)
Susan Whitmer (Herman Miller Co.)
Katie Clark (University of Rochester)
Marcia Boosinger (Auburn)
Joe Williams (North Carolina State University)
Erin Mayhood (University of Virginia)
And oh yeah… Brian Mathews (Georgia Tech)

CeLIBration 2007 – recap (Diddy ain’t got nothin’ on us)

On Saturday we kicked off our welcome event from 7 – 11pm. If you read my blog, I'm guessing you've seen my past posts on this subject. We hit over 700 students, far exceeding my expectations. This event is targeted toward freshmen (our incoming class is typically around 2,000) however, open to all students.

PROMOTION

If you're planning some type of event I highly recommend aligning yourself with the undergraduate/orientation/student success/freshmen Office. We were able to generate large attendance by not competing with other “official” campus events. Furthermore, we gained free publicity by becoming an “official” event.

We also handed out event flyers at incoming-student orientation “marketplace” sessions throughout the summer, and pushed the event (and other library info) at a Residential Assistant/Housing Retreat. I posted a Facebook flyer ($5 per day) for several days leading up to the event, however I don't think those are very effective. I also invited members of the Class of 2011 group . During orientation sessions, most students registered for classes in the library—so we made sure that CeLIBration information was visible to them.

Here is a sample of some of our advertising, courtesy of Dottie Hunt:

We had these around the Library and students received smaller B/W copies too.

All-purpose flyer.

Each event had it's own poster.

FOOD & DRINKS

Every group on campus is giving away free food this week. It's a draw, but you need more than that. We gave away 100 large pizzas (I would tell you company, but they wouldn't give us a deal, so no free publicity) and 50 batches of movie theater style popcorn. We also had an assortment of refreshing Coca-Cola beverages.

ACTIVITIES

Doors opened at 7pm and we didn't schedule any activities until 8. We wanted to give everyone the chance to grab some food and wander around. Our objective was to fit 30-60 people in different areas throughout the library. This gets them in and around the building.

• Board games were very popular, as was DDR. Retro video games (from the 1980's) were not so much, but that's because Macs suck we had some computer problems with our non-Windows operating system.
  

  

  

• Speed-dating was a success. Several librarians from other schools have laughed at me for this—and that's fine, go on hating. We had 3 full sessions, again. We moved it into our gallery, added tablecloths, small mirrors, and flowers, together with a small floating candle—it was very classy; many people called it Parisian. We also raffled away several pairs of movie tickets to female participants to help get things started. Nice work J.S. Shout out to Mr. Hines on the mic.
  

  

  

• Improv Comedy is not my really thing, but the students loved. They had a big audience (50+) for two performances. If you have performance groups on campus you should invite them in from time to time.
  

  

• Ninja Tag was wild. I watched one round and was worried someone would get hurt. It was fast and violent—so hence, very cool. The pictures don't do justice to how dark it was. There was also loud music blasting. This year we doubled the playing space (got rid of some antiqued books!) and I hear we added an extra round. This event was in great demand. The setup was very labor intensive otherwise I'd advocate we do this monthly on a Friday night. Essentially it is a game of team tag played on a darkened floor with black lights. Ninja t-shirts were given to winning teams. Nice work B.T. (Stay East)
  

  

  

  

  

• Poker was packed. I had space for 40 players, but there was greater demand. I had to turn a lot of disappointed people away and felt bad. Never underestimate the appeal of gambling. I bought 800 chips (20 for each player) and several decks of cards. We gave away a rad trophy along with a $100 prize. Because of campus regulations, I could not give a gift card, but had to award a “real” prize, therefore I asked the champion to select something from Best Buy / Amazon to be sent to him. Custom prizes are better anyway. Thanks for the help C.B. and the Security Team.

We had refreshing Coca-Cola products plentifully available throughout the night, however for the championship round I wanted to kick it up and so I provided the gentlemen with Red Bull Energy Drinks to help vitalize the mind and body. (I'm still seeking sponsorship for my Halo 3 event on September 25th.)

• The Ice Water Challenge wasn't something we planned, but once the sodas were gone students challenged each other to see who could stand in freezing pools of ice water the longest. Gotta love Georgia Tech!
  

  

 

We also had a DJ from our campus radio station spinning CDs outside of the library, t-shirt giveaways , and the Outdoor Recreation club messing around in our water fountain. Overall it was a cool event. I was stuck in the poker pits most of the time, but it seems like the people enjoyed themselves.

 

CLOSING THOUGHTS 

• We use to hold our welcome event on the first Saturday after the semester started, however turnout kept declining— so last year we switched to the Saturday before school started and had over 500 in attendance. We have compete with some casual sorority/fraternity rush events, but several hundred students is a huge success in our eyes. Besides, Greek stuff probably doesn't really get going until 11pm anyway.

 

• We benefited from a central coordinator—keeping everyone on track and handling the larger details. Lori Critz did a great job again this year. We also had event coordinators who handed the dirty details of each activity. This works so much better than planning-by-committee. We each had a set budget and the freedom to develop our events as seen fit, meeting occasionally to bounce ideas. We also had a large pool of volunteers. I'd guess between 15-20 library staff members helped out at the event, including our Director, an Associate Director, and at least 2 department heads. I think it's important for Admin to participate—however, we also pulled widely from several departments, which was a great benefit. I also think that these types of events are better for staff bonding/morale building than any type of contrived gathering. (Thanks to everyone for helping out, although no one in my library reads this blog.)

 

• I've been learning so much about textured experiences lately. Lighting is everything. I heard many students remark favorably about the space. We could differentiate the activities/areas based on color. Varying table shapes and sizes are incredible. Portability. Personalization. I was always an early believer in modularization, but now my faith is confirmed. Atmospherics are powerful, whether you are designing space for studying or for poker—set the right mood. Now if I could only get someone to listen to me about the importance of a signature scent.

 

• I am 100% against library staff being required to wear any type of official attire. Jeans and a black t-shirt is appropriate. (Come on Jon!) However, my opinion is often wrong. A few people (5-6) asked me who was hosting the Poker Tournament, as in they thought it was a frat or the housing office, etc. While we were able to get people into the library, I am not sure it was clear that it was us who organized the event. That's something for us to discuss next year. We definitely want to take credit for something successful—if it's a flop we'll blame someone else, like the Admissions Office.

 

• It doesn't always have to be about the library. That's the key really. We're not blasting them with Boolean or databases or policies. We want to get freshmen in the door, showoff our space, and hopefully make them feel comfortable. Let them see that we are approachable and not stogy. We want to set the bar high and raise their expectations of what the library is or can be. We also want to tap into their minds early on—before they even step foot in the classroom—they all know where the library is now. We really need to do this type of thing (library branded entertainment activities) more often, I'd say at least twice a semester. If we can offer a mixture of fun and academic events geared freshmen throughout the first semester—I think it would pay off in the long run. Just a theory.

• Set up as much as possible the day/night before.

All photos taken by Katie Gentilello.

Raising our Game – ideas for the next phase of Gaming @ the Georgia Tech Library

If you are a librarian with a blog then you have to mention gaming from time to time. This is my obligatory post. Here are a few upcoming projects -- a peek at what's on my drawing board.

POKER

Many librarians have expressed interest in our CeLIBration event. We're gearing up for this annual “welcome” event the weekend before the start of the Fall Semester. (Aug 18) This time around I am hosting a poker tournament (and we've still got ninja tag , speed dating , retro video games, board games, ddr , improv, and pizza.)

Poker, Round 1 begins at 8pm. 10 tables, each with up to 5 players. Participants are given 25 chips at the start. After 1 hour of play, the top chip-winners at each table will advance to the championship round starting at 10pm. Those 10 battle it out for a trophy and a fabulous prize.

I'll post a follow-up review of the event later this month, along with our advertising strategy.

HALO 3

Harry who? Halo is the gaming equivalent to Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings or Star Wars for you old timers. People will camp out at Best Buy in order to purchase this game. Halo 2 sold over 7 million copies -- we're talking $125 million on opening day. Epic!

This is a great opportunity for all types of libraries (academic and public) to be a part of pop-culture, or at least geeky gamer culture. I am going to try and talk our admin and commons coordinator into letting me host a Halo 3 party on Tuesday , September 25 (the release day.)

We have an 80 inch screen with surround sound that would be awesome. We can dim the lights or illuminate that particular area, pull up couches and comfortable chairs and really offer a unique gaming experience. Something like this in our East Commons:

 

If it goes forward, I might put in some calls to Red Bull or Monster (coca cola), GameTap (Turner), and Microsoft (xbox) to see if I can get a few giveaways. Maybe start at 7pm and roll until whenever (we're 24 hours so…)

It's something you should think about too; I highly recommend you take advantage of the opportunity... you could probably easily find an enthusiastic gamer (use your online social networking connections for more than chatting with other librarians) and invite them to bring their friends, xbox 360, and halo 3. You give them space and a big screen and maybe invest $100 in food or try to get it donated.

GAMING THE WALL (like gleaming the cube, dude!)

This idea developed today on the reference desk with Dottie Hunt – the last hour on the last day of the summer semester. We were talking about the “halo 3 experience” and she suggested that we project a game outside on the wall of the library. This conversation evolved to “gaming the wall” on a Saturday after a football game. We have thousands of people walk by the library in route to their cars—so why not offer a distraction? It would be cool to have an ncaa football video game projected on a huge wall, hooked up to speakers. Or maybe a battle royal type game? This could be a big payoff in terms of street cred.

We could do it Sept 29 (vs. Clemson) and develop that week into some type of gamer's heaven (remember Halo 3, Sept 25), but I like November 1 (Virginia Tech) better because it's a Thursday night game and it's Va Tech vs. Ga Tech -- outdoor gaming fits nicely into the “techie” stereotype. Plus it will be televised on ESPN. I would love to take on Herbstreit and he can even play with his gator bait team . Perhaps this is something we could tie in with Homecoming too… I'm sure we could get funding from someone somewhere? Obviously there is still a lot to be worked out, but I just like the idea of gaming on the wall.

For more info on gaming @ GT, check out Lori Critz's presentation . We don't mess around in our library:

Flashing the Library – an animation competition at Georgia Tech

Many academic libraries have “term paper” contests (1 & 2) – or Book Collection Contests— or the recent trend of “make us a video to show how great the library is”-- but we’re kicking it up. I humbly submit:

FLASH in the Pan 2007: Animation Challenge

This is just one of a buffet of “cool media projects” we have coming out this year and I’m pretty excited about this one. Essentially, it started as a video competition for students and an opportunity to pitch library products (software & equipment & materials) and services (help) that we offer. The original idea was a “library” themed video contest, which evolved to “life on campus,” and now finally (thankfully!) it is totally open. No theme! No limits! Just make it good!

We’re asking students to create a short video using Adobe Flash, which we will then turn around and present at an awards show and give away cool prizes. This project was conceived by Jon Bodnar and Alison Valk -- I volunteered to come in and add a little social marketing sizzle. We were very fortunate to get Wacom to donate a tablet, and to use our connections to pull in representatives from Homestar Runner and Sanrio / Hello Kitty to serve as guest judges. I’m hoping to get Adobe to buy-in too, since we’re featuring their software, and we’re working out agreements with our neighbors Cartoon Network and Coca-Cola (both located literately across the street from campus.) Major players, cool technology, design and creativity—what’s not to like?

You can read Jon and Alison’s descriptions too, but here are a few quick notes of my own:

• The contest allows us to create an emotional connection with patrons. This is especially helpful for incoming freshmen or students with minimal library experience. How can we stay on their radar for academic, creative, social, and technological needs? How can we present a suprise?
• The contest demonstrations (or reinforces) that we’re more than books and study space.
• The contest shows that we have software (which they need for class) and other equipment, such as video cameras, microphones, and laptops.
• It allows us to show that we have books (tech books, design books, animation books, etc) and tutorials, as well as staff who can help them.
• Hopefully it will create a community of users interested in animation-- get them in touch and inspire future works of collobration.
• We can promote our multimedia workshops/classes, which includes Flash and tons of other programs. (I also want to try a little manufactured ubiquity by inviting a group over to the café after a Flash class to talk about the contest, technology, design, all that, and in the process really capture a snapshot of student life. Maybe they’ll mention class or an assignment in which case I can play a “librarian” role, but it doesn't always have to be about that — more later.) 
• Our grand prize is a tablet (donated by Wacom)--- we have several of these available now for checkout, giving us some cross promotional opportunities.
• The contest gives is a chance to talk with faculty about something other than scholarly communication, information literary, budget cuts, and Michael Vick. We can target those who use Flash in the classroom, or other multimedia / design programs, and ask them to help us promote the contest. This could also help us appear less stogy to these faculty as well-- giving us some relevance.
• It allows us to have a competition, but also an awards show (in the library) –giving us more mileage. People might not have the time, interest, or skills to make a video (flash is fairly easy though) but they can drop by to watch the show. I doubt you’d have a big turnout for a “presentation of the award winning research paper”—but this allows us to create a campus event... and potentially even a media event.
• Later we can place the videos online for anyone to watch and comment on-- they won't just die afterwards.
• Ultimately this contest let’s us show that we don’t always take ourselves too seriously. The Library isn’t just all hard work -- it has some personality. It can be fun and creative and a little crazy too. I feel our primary mission is to inspire students... but maybe my priorities are off?
• Oh yeah, and the marketing campaign is pretty cool too. I'll post on that later in the year with examples.

UPDATE:
We've got a loose deal with Adobe to "sponsor" the event and we're pretty close to getting a guest judge from Marvel.

Uncovering the Craft – early thoughts on an artist speaker series

The Homestar talk got me thinking toward a regular speaker series. I’m going to pitch it later this month, but here is my brainstorm…

Uncovering the Craft
Revealing the Artists @ Tech

I want to pull together a multipart speaker series focusing on the creative segment on campus. In the past we’ve invited people in to perform or display their work, many libraries do this sort of thing, but let’s dig deeper. We’re already pulling together a regular series of talks by undergraduates who have conducted research to discuss their work and the process, so why not do the same for artists?

Let’s bring them in to talk about the craft, what goes into it, techniques, workflow, a glimpse behind the scenes. Ultimately, the objective is to foster a creative community. Give people of a similar bent or nature (character) the opportunity to meet and hopefully extend beyond the walls of our event. Let’s try and get people together who might not have met otherwise and encourage or inspire them. Our payoff is that we’ve contributed to intellectual stimulation and can form a marketable segment once we’ve identified the artistic community. This will enable us to deliver tailored advertising and develop future partnerships. Essentially we can manufacture word of mouth for the Library.

I’d like to find two students to run it: an SGA type looking for leadership experience and the opportunity to enhance the cultural atmosphere on campus, and another student who is rooted in the artistic community with all the right connections and influence. This combo could potentially give us positive outreach points, aid in student development/relationships, a little funding from SGA, and most important: legitimacy. Instead of a lame Library event, we spin it as for artists, by artists. It would be nice to offer some exotic refreshments too… pizza, soda, and cookies are tried and true, but let’s stimulate the sense of taste too.

I imagine a one hour program along these lines:

• 10 minutes – Demonstration of Work
• 20 minutes – Talking about the Craft / Process (somewhat of a clinic)
• 15 minutes – Interviewed by Host (a la Inside Actors Studio)
• 15 minutes – Open Discussion / Further Demonstration

I anticipate a Fall Semester launch, on a weekly schedule across six weeks. Maybe every Wednesday night at 7pm or whatever—that’s for the student coordinators to determine. But also build in the suggestion that everyone is going to hangout afterwards at a nearby restaurant… again, building a community, encouraging fellowship, all loosely connected to the goodwill of the Library.

So the line up would be something like this:

Week 1: FILM
Award winning student filmmaker talks about the process and production design.

Week 2: MUSIC
Students in a local band describe the songwriting, recording, and touring process. Maybe nice to juxtapose with a classical violinist, student band member, or other musical talent.

WEEK 3: VISUAL ART
A panel featuring a painter, sculptor, and a graphical designer.

WEEK 4: ACTING
Feature a student actor, and maybe also a tie in with the campus theater group. What goes into putting on a show? How do the actors prepare? How do they pull it off? What goes on behind the scenes?

WEEK 5: WRITERS
Maybe bring together reps from the student newspaper, the yearbook, and the literary magazine to talk shop. I am interested in the creative process, but production value, workflow, and other topics could be interesting too.

WEEK 6: COMIC
We have a professor who’s a standup comedian and a friend of the Library. He’s done a routine before in the Library, but let’s learn about the process. How does he write material? What goes through his mind on stage? How does this influence his teaching style?

Anyway that’s it in a nutshell. The beauty is that we can video the presentations and add to them our Institutional Repository (I hope!) We can interview the students for our podcast series. Use the participants in print and web advertising, and design word of mouth and social networking campaigns around them. Essentially, manufacture these students into Library Advocates. (This framework will be detailed more here.)

The artist crowd is easy, the real challenge will be to branch out to less obvious and less accessible segments and provide meaning for the as well.

Welcoming Freshmen Event - 2007 - (preview)

The murmurs have begun about what we’re going to do this year for our welcome freshmen event. Last year we had a decent turnout and I hope we can continue that success. I also hope we call it something other than CeLIBration, but people around here tend to like to stick with a name rather than mix it up.

The biggest lesson I learned last year was the need to make the activities structured more concurrently. For example, with speed-dating a patron needed to commit a full hour and consequently had to miss out on other activities. So I am going to strongly urge that we try to build everything into 30 minute segments.

Last year I co-hosted/co-coordinated speed-dating, which had a high turnout, but I have no interest into doing that again. I hope someone else will run with it this year. If anything, several of the patrons I spoke with said they’d like to see some type of formalized meet-and-greet activities in the form of a game or whatever. They liked spending a few minutes in the company of strangers. So with or without the dating structure, we have to do something.

This year I have two activities I am going to try to pull off:

1. I want to invite several football players to come in and accept the challenge from the student body to beat them at their own game: NCAA Football for Xbox or PlayStation. Rig up a few consoles and set the games to 10 minutes and see what happens. I’ve met several of the players and they are cool and approachable and I think they’d get a kick of out playing as themselves in a public setting. I think the students would enjoy it too—a chance to mingle with the athletes. Our season opens at Notre Dame and bank on it, GT will win.
   
2. The second idea I’m floating around is a poker tournament. Take 5 tables with maybe 4-7 players at each one, and play for 30 minutes and the winner (top number of chips) at each table advances to the championship. So later in the night those 5 winners go head to head in the finals.

In May we’ll start talking seriously about the event, but I’m looking forward to it.

Oh and you can’t tell me that Idol has better performers than Rockstar (well, you can but I’d disagree with you.) Here is the Rockstar version of a Stones classic, and here is the wanna-be-diva Idol version. Seriously.

Building Around Movies: promotional ideas for libraries

Here's a sneak peek at an idea that I intend to pitch next week.

I often talk about the need for libraries to move away from transactional advertising, that is, simply promoting an event or service, and to include more a symbolic and even symbiotic promotional approach. Transaction-based or consumption-based advertising is fine in an infomercial kind of way, but there is a lot to be gained by supplementing that with a community-based approach. (I'll share more in the future.)

I read the Walking Paper post last week describing the use of Flickr for movie screenshot contests, and it got me thinking. I'm kind of on this short term, minimal effort, minimal cost, themed based, advertising kick. I want to quickly develop campaigns, run them for a few weeks, and then move on to something else.

Three distinctions we have: (1) a couple of Hollywood movies have been shot in the library or around campus, (2) one of our library admins sponsors a student club that hosts an annual film competition, and (3) we allegedly have an Oscar in our Archives.

How could we leverage these assets? Could we build a campaign around film? Why not take advantage of several projects coming together in the Spring and merge it with the Academy Awards?

I want us to forget about a big clever (lame) title or message, but simply string together a handful of events designed to integrate the library deeper into the campus culture, to give students a unique experience, and of course, for the library to gain more exposure.

Here are some ideas:

• Weekly Movie Screen Capture Contest : Starting in mid-January and running through the week of the Oscars in Feb, place a poster featuring a screenshot from a film we have in our collection in a display cabinet in our cafe. Students can guess the film via email (they have to use their campus account for authenticity) and we'll give a random winner two movie tickets each week. This will encourage people to come into the library as
  well as discover our movie collection. Might be cool to run a $5 per day Facebook banner ad once a week with the screenshot and link to information about the contest.
• iMovie Fest Events . In mid-January, GT participates in a student run film contest. They form teams to make 5 minute films within a week. Winners then go on to an Atlanta contest with our good neighbors GSU and Emory. Students come to the library to pick up and return their equipment and just to give you a sense of size, the average is over 75 submissions each year—that's a lot, especially for an engineering school! Anyway, in February they host a big event on campus with about 700 attendees—they watch several of the films and hand out awards. I was thinking, maybe we could host an after-party for the winners in a special secret room up on the top floor with a great view of the city. Only about 4 people have access to this room and the secrecy has become a campus/urban legend.
  
  But that's not all. We could also build an event later in the week. We close on Saturday's at 6pm . So why not reopen at 7pm and show all the movies on our 80 inch screen? Only about a third of the films get shown at the main event because of time (and quality?) so this would give everyone a chance to check out other people's work. We could fill the space with couches and comfortable chairs, as well as free popcorn and drinks, and interview students, a la documentary style, about the film making process. The student group already puts the films online, but we'd be celebrating the student and giving them a chance to meet/share others.
• Winter Wish List Run , aka: The Joey Fones 5K project. This is under development for February. Basically it is a 5k run and we're seeking donations. Participants will get a t-shirt and can also suggest a film that we should add to the collection. I think we're going to try and use Netflix's inexpensive purchasing service.
• Movie Displays . Host a display of movies shot within the library and/or around campus. Maybe a movie poster, combined with brief information, press, and photos for each?
• Trivia . A few of the restaurants on campus host a trivia contest every Thursday night. It would be cool if we could partner with them one week and have one night focus on just movie trivia. Maybe we could co-host and give out prizes or something.
• Oscar . We boost that we have an Oscar in our Archives, so why not dust it off, polish it up, and let people see it? Obviously we want to be in control, but why not let them hold it and take photos of themselves with it? Build it up as a full day, preferably the week leading up to the Academy Awards, and just see if people are interested.
• Show Movies . Obviously it's a chance to show movies. We've dabbled with this before, but they've always been linked to a class. Perhaps there is an opportunity to develop a theme and every Wednesday night (or whenever) show something interesting. I'd love to invite a different cultural student group to show a film each week: the Chinese Club, the Pakistani Club, the German Club, etc.
• Cross Promote Other Movies on Campus. It's not just about us, we can also cross-promote movie events that student groups offer. I recall the Russian Club had something going on somewhere in the Fall. And I know that SGA regularly has popular Hollywood film screenings. So again, pull all this together and give students options/awareness.
• Promote our stuff. Highlight our classes for film editing software iMovie and Final Cut. Also offer some clinics on how to use our equipment to burn DVDs and/or how to digitize VHS. As well as promote digital camcorders that are available for checkout.

That's just a couple of things off the top of my head. You get the point. For 6 weeks just blast them with the film theme. Rather than focusing on one big event, spread it around. Blend our self-promotion with crossover promotions, as well as celebrating the students. The emphasis is on the experience, rather than the resources or services we provide. It's really about how we can become a partner (or rather, a part) with our campus culture.

Games @ the GT Library (CeLIBration, PART 4)

As I mentioned in part one , we had tried the LAN approach with mild success. The students that were into it were REALLY into it, but with less than 100 attendees two years in a row, it didn't make sense to continue targeting that niche. Our goal was to appeal to the widest group possible, so we scrapped the LAN plans. Here is what we did instead:

The Arcade

Background & Setup

Retro Gaming is hot right now! What's that? Old school games. Stuff that us Gen X kids grew up on. Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Atari. While modern game systems are sleek and offer complex challenges , there is just something cool about playing Super Mario Brothers. Essentially we turned our Multimedia Center into an arcade. This is a small area filled with Macs. We also offered Dance Dance Revolution , which had been popular at last year's event.

We cranked up the volume and it was packed all night.

Lessons Learned/Recommendations

• The sounds and noise from the games creating an exciting atmosphere.
• The area was too small. We thought it would be cozy, but it was cramped. Some people just wanted to watch and we could not accommodate the crowd.
• We needed more USB game controllers in order to create a realistic gaming experience. Using keyboards just wasn't the same.
• We offered a handful of game options, including Donkey Kong Country, Street Fighter, Mega Man, and Super Mario Bros. I would like to expand this, but you can only do so much.
• I would have liked to offer an unofficial NCAA Football Tournament. The Madden Tournaments are very popular and it could have been fun to incorporate the Georgia Tech team, especially with Notre Dame as the home opener. Or even if we had several rounds in which students play the computer (GT vs. UGA) and the highest winning score each round wins a prize. I would have liked to enable them to play against each other, however the impression was that students just wanted to play and wanted to watch and be watched.
• We had considered bringing in a Dreamcast , but decided against it because of space limitations.
• You need someone with emulator skills .

Board Games

Talk about retro-gaming! I'm sure lots of libraries offer board games for patrons to play. Again, we were not trying to be ground breaking here, just appeal to a wide audience. We didn't think too many people would play board games, but this was another area that was packed all night. Library staff were gracious enough to let us borrow a handful of games, including Yahtzee, Monopoly, Twister, and Risk. We built the area into a living room / coffee shop zone with the very relaxed vibe. Bean Bags. Couches. Tables and Chairs. Blankets.

A student asked if we were going to keep Risk in the library so she and her friends could play throughout the semester. We're talking about this, with the theory that providing leisure activities supports our goal of being more than just a place to study or do research, but also a comfortable, inviting, relaxing, social environment. (More on that in PART 6)

Marketing

FaceBook should give me an endorsement deal. Once more we were able to target students with interest in gaming. Of all the activities we promoted, this one received the more buzz. Student posting several comments to each other and there was tremendous excitement before they arrived.

See also:

• Gaming in Libraries
• Gaming: The Next Hot Technology for Libraries?

Some of my favorite retro games:

• Faxanadu
• Final Fantasy
• Pitfall II: Lost Caverns

Photos:

Ninja Tag @ the GT Library (CeLIBration, PART 3)

I was not very involved in this activity, other than helping to unscrew (and than re-screw) about 100 fluorescent lights. This was the brainchild of the stealthy Bonnie Tijerina . Bonnie is very involved with the Electronic Resources and Libraries Conference . Hmmm, Meredith is offering her content for free . ERL offers their content for free . ACRL, get a clue!

One of the things I liked about our CeLIBration crew was that it was very open and nimble. We had a little over $1,000 to spend and tossed around a ton of ideas. One that stuck was idea of playing tag in the library. Bonnie (and Charlene) ran this activitiy and sexed it up with a “Ninja” theme. Very successful!

Here's what Bonnie shared with me, combined with my observations.

Background & Setup

Initially we wanted to create a huge game of tag throughout the library, but we narrowed it down to most of one floor. This helped regarding containment of activities to just two floors of the building. We investigated the price and logistics of laser tag, but that could not be done, so we stuck with a game that was a blend of tag and capture the flag. To change it up a bit, we added a teamwork component. Students would compete in groups, with the winning team receiving movie tickets. 52 students participated in three sessions, however many students were turned away. We easily could have had 100+ willing participants.

To make it more interesting and difficult, we turned off all the lights and installed several black lights and a strobe light. We did this in a space with lots of tables and cubicles so that we could rearrange the environment and create a maze with various obstacles. Knowing that ninjas are cool with kids these days, we decided to call it Ninja Tag, and emphasized the need to be ninja-like to tag out the opposing team.

Students were placed on one of two teams, and wore colored reflective tape to identify their side. The goal was to remove a white tag that was attached to the tape of the opposing team, while running throughout the maze with loud dance music blaring.

Supplies & Costs

• 12 Black Lights (new) $190
• 1 Strobe Light (used) $10
• Movie Tickets for 3 rounds: $150
• Sign-up Sheets
• Cubicles & Tables
• Colored Electrical Tape
• Music! Helps if you have a PA system.

Total: $350

Prep Time and Staffing

1 hour set-up and 1 hour take down with the help of 5-6 people. During tag matches, 3 - 4 people serving as referees, preferably dressed in white so as to be easily identified.

What students said

Students, especially male students, LOVED it! They had many suggestions including:

• Increase the number of players on each team (we tried to limit teams to 8 players)
• Having tag throughout the entire library.
• Having tag throughout the school year.
• Making it a tournament.
• Letting people wear two tags, essentially two lives, to prolong game play.

Some players bonded through teamwork and created names, such as “Team KILL” and “Team Sexy Beasts.”

Students also didn't seem to care about the prizes. They just wanted to play and wanted their friends to be on their team – that was more important than a prize. Bragging rights were very important.

Lessons Learned/Recommendations  

• It helps to actually know what young people are into. We gained invaluable knowledge from someone close to their age.
• The colors we used (pink & red) were a little too similar. Next time we plan to use a wider spectrum to include blue and yellow.
• Students wanted to keep playing. It's an adrenal rush for a few minutes and they wanted more.
• Many students went home and changed into dark clothes (ninja attire) once they discovered the game.
• We're considering running a tag tournament over the semester, or at least hosting another night organized into a tournament style game.
• Having tag on multiple floors would increase the challenge. We could create multiple mazes or black lit zones, however areas of total darkness (shadow zones) are intriguing too.
• Having multiple teams playing simultaneously would also increase the difficulty, as well as allow more people to play.
• Facebook! 16 students listed ‘tag' on their profile. 127 listed ninja. This allowed us to directly market the event. We're also forming a FB group to build anticipation for future events. This will allow us to create a community of interested ‘tag' students. We'll also probably advertise widely on campus, and try to get people signed up early.
• Maybe we could form an actual Campus Club called Ninja Tag, and host monthly events in various locations. Students seemed passionate about the game, so why not let them play? And why not let SGA pay for it?

  Photos

Speed Dating @ the GT Library (CeLIBration, PART 2)

[NOTE: I was a little off on my original budget for the night. We actually had $1,200 to work with (not $2,500) and ending up spending around $1,500. Not too bad for entertaining 600 people.]

We had eight staff members volunteer to serve as coordinators for the CeLIBration event ( see intro, part1 ). I was paired with the ever c ourteous, super stylish, ultra-disarming Julie Griffin to handle the Speed Dating activity. One of the most common complaints about GT is that there are not enough single girls. So we did our part to help address this need on campus. Speed Dating is VERY popular and some club, group, or organization has already done it at your school. And I'm sure that someone from some library in New York will probably post a message saying they've been doing speed dating for years now. Yeah, yeah and those people in Belgium . The point was not about trying to be fresh, but rather to test it out and to gauge student interest. Results: they're definitely interested!

Background & Setup

We knew CeLIBration would be noisy and our goal was to create separate zones around the library. We decided to offer speed dating on our second floor, away from everything else. We liked this space because it gave us a private cozy defined area to work with.

We pushed several long tables out of the way and setup 10 smaller tables in a circle, with two chairs at each. The plan was to have the females sit in the middle and let the guys rotate around them. The premise is that they'd spend 2-4 minutes with each person and write down the number (each person had a number rather than name) of people they were interested in. Afterwards, we'd look for matches and notify the females via email. (Although theoretically, they could just use Facebook to track down a person.)

We killed the lights because they didn't fit our mood. We taped pink paper over a security/emergency light to create a softer tone. (Thanks Katie!) Additionally, we purchased floating candles to add a touch of class. We also considered tablecloths and small flowers, but decided against both. Musically, we talked about playing romantic jazz, but wisely opted for a more contemporary pop and rock mix (Thanks Charlene!)

Another item we questioned was attire. Originally we talked about dressing up, but then I got on a Brooke Burke & Dave Navarro kick. We settled somewhere in the middle. Ultimately it didn't matter. They could care less about us. It was all about them, as it should be.

Doors opened at 7 and we had planned to do two sessions, starting at eight and another at nine. 8pm rolls around and we had 3 girls. Hmmm, looked like the whole thing was busted. We made an announcement over the intercom (Thanks Charlene!) and told the eagerly waiting guys to ‘go get us some ladies' and by 8:20 we had 11 willing female participants. Once things got started, it ran smoothly, although the music wasn't loud enough and we needed a bell or whistle to indicate that it was time to change partners. A BIG thanks to Mr. Terrence Hines who turned out to be ideal for crowd management and a “rotation” director. Once things got going, other students dropped by and signed up for the later session. We had 16 girls interested and scrambled to find chairs and tables to accommodate the extra students.

A total of 54 students participated in two sessions. We thought about doing a third, but needed to help out with other activities. However, Julie and I both felt that there was sincere interest and we hope to offer another speed dating event sometime in the Fall semester.

Supplies and Cost

• 10 tables, 20 chairs (but ended up needing more)
• Candles and holders - $13
• Name Tags
• Match Sheets (see pic)
• Pencils

Lessons Learned / Recommendations

• Don't try and make it too romantic, that's cheesy. The darkened room with candles seemed about right.
• Don't play ‘romantic' music. These people are looking for dates. That type of music is better suited for when you have someone and you're trying to set the mood. Play something fun and upbeat.
• It gets loud! Once 20 or more people start talking, it's hard to speak over them. Use a bell, horn, or whistle to indicate their time is up. We'd talked about this, but didn't follow through.
• Host it somewhere visual, but with a little privacy. If we had been on the main floor, we easily could have doubled our numbers. However, you don't want it to be too open. You don't want too many gawkers, which could make participants uncomfortable. We put up a table barrier so others could see, but not listen. We also ran into a timing problem because people were waiting in line for food or checking out other activities. If you do a big event, space it out or have a sign-up sheet near the door with someone pulling people in.
• Plan for it to take longer than you expect.
• Use FaceBook to directly market to your audience. We created a FB event (Thanks Bonnie!) and invited all single freshmen who were interested in dating. We only had a few people express interest online, however it helps to get the word out there. My goal is to build the impression that the library is dynamic, whether we're offering a class on LaTeX or hooking people up, we're doing something to enhance their experience at Tech.
• Figure out what to do when you have more people than you expected. We probably should have capped each session at 20 (10 girls, 10 guys), but I wanted to be accommodating. Have a backup plan. There were no solo single females; they all came together in pairs or small groups. Keep that in mind.
• Print tons of extra match sheets! And have tons of pencils.
• Make sure you push out info to the RAs. They interact with your students more than you do.
• Offer prizes/gifts. We wanted to give them a ‘your first date' type experience. Tickets to movies, sporting events, Atlanta attractions, or local restaurants. We ran out of time to pull this together, but whether or not they actually used them for the date, as opposed to just going with friends, it's the thought that counts. It would add a little class or incentive.
• Regarding ‘name' tags—make sure they write their number! This seemed to be a confusing concept for them.
• While people are signing up, the area can get crowded. I thought about separating the genders. This would also allow for a better way to explain the speed dating process, rather than continuously repeating instructions. Additionally, a small handout, with maybe three bullet points explaining the process would have been helpful. Next time, I'll probably seat the women right away and make the guys wait around the corner. Julie could talk with the females, explaining everything, while I did the same for the fellas. Then we bring them together and get out of the way.
• Host it regularly. I like that we had a successful welcome event, and hope we maintain our momentum. It would be ideal if once a month we did a small scale version of this. Brand the event. Build our reputation.

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