HOW GAMING Could Improve Information Literacy.

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Author: Doshi, Ameet1 doshia@cod.edu

Some of you might recall a scene from the 1983 movie WarGames in which a precocious high schooler (played by Matthew Broderick) is intensely concentrating in front of a microfiche reader at the school library. He's not researching for a term paper or English assignment. Instead, he's spending hours with the microfiche with the hopes of cracking into a secure computer network. His nefarious objective? To play a game! The film also makes a point of portraying Broderick as an early-adopting, nonconforming technophile. Interestingly, these are also characteristics that describe many of the "millennial" students we teach at academic libraries across the nation. I was struck by the tenacity of this character when it came to gaming; he would do anything to be able to play this computer game--even resorting to library research.

For the past 2 years. I have served as the resident librarian at the College of DuPage, a large community college in Glen Ellyn. Ill. As resident librarian, I've taught numerous library, skills sessions, and am dismayed at the passive attitude I sometimes get from students forced to endure YALS (Yet Another Library Session. In an effort to learn how to build some excitement into my teaching, I attended the December 2005 Gaming, Learning and Libraries symposium sponsored by the Metropolitan Library System in Chicago. This article outlines some of the innovative ideas expressed at the symposium, as well as my own notions about the potential for integrating gaming with information literacy.

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By Ameet Doshi

Ameet Doshi is resident librarian at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Ill. He holds an M.S. in information science from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. His e-mail address is doshia@cod.edu.