"Gaming, Learning and Libraries"

Tomorrow (Monday) I'm off to Chicago for a program organized by Jenny Levine called "Gaming, Learning and Libraries." Unfortunately, I'm going to miss the first day of this two day conference because of a previous commitment at OCLC, but there should be plenty of food for thought on Tuesday. I hope I provide a little during my own talk.

One of the things I'll be discussing that I didn't even have time to include in the PowerPoint version of my talk is a survey that was released late last month by the BBC. The "Beeb" asked an undisclosed number of UK residents about their gaming habits, and the results are very interesting. 59% of those surveyed (between the ages of 6 and 65) are gamers. Incidentally, for the purposes of this survey, "A gamer is defined as someone who has played video games in the last six months on any platform, including interactive TV (iTV)." 100% of the youngest people surveyed are gamers. Consoles were the most commonly used, followed by PC games and handhelds. My colleague David Leslie from the QuestionPoint team, who pointed me to this study, warned me that their are major differences in the ways people in different countries approach gaming, but this is still a good snapshot and adds more fuel to the discussion.