Thursday, October 19, 2006

DDR helps YA librarians promote active lifestyles

Have had a wonderful trip to Florida, Illinois and New York and am now back home. Have waded through the administrative parts of being gone (paying overdue bills, such fun) and happened on an article in Young Adult Library Services (the YALSA publication) from Beth Gallaway and Alissa Lauzon about DDR, which stands for Dance Dance Revolution.

I distantly knew there were mats involved in some games, thanks to Jenny Levine's photos periodically, but for some reason all the pieces of the puzzle hadn't clicked until today. See for yourself how it works on YouTube.

The other reason it seems so timely to me right now is I just heard about the Verb campaign, a multi-year campaign put on by the CDC to help reduce childhood obesity. A chilling statistic: this is the first generation of children that are not expected to outlive their parents. Scary...

Now there is hope, even after DDR, for these kids AND the environment AND your library. Just install an Energy-generating Dance Floor in the teen section and invite people to rock out. Of course, you may have to put a door on the YA area... think we'll see DDR Olympics in Seattle? (Thanks to Ambidextrous for the flooring tip.)

3 comments:

Alice said...

I just heard that there is another form of DDR called DDI (Dance Dance Immolation) where you get flamed if you mis-dance! Check out the burning man! (And thanks Merrilee!)

Anonymous said...

Oh, sure. Just when I think I've put enough distance between me and my humiliation-filled, motor skill-impaired youth, I'll have to start displaying my extreme lack of coordination at library programs. Why can't I be a cool kid for once? Why?

Alice said...

Well TFR, it looks like even if you had a humiliation-filled youth, you may be able to impress the youth of today with German jewelry while you dance...