Car News

Thanks for your posting. My apologies for the long delay in responding,
I am just now trying to catch up on all the list emails.
Back in the mid-80's I did indeed have a weekly group that RPG'd at the
local library. We needed to keep the noise level during especially
exuberant times down, but for the most part we were able to easily use
the facilities without any problem. I used the local libraries in two
locations in the greater Salt Lake City, Utah area from 1984 through
1986, including running a small RPGA convention at the Millcreek Library
in '86 that had about 50 people (I was 15 at the time).
This was despite the cultural push at the time against gamers,
especially in Utah, because of the various "Satanic Panic" and other
issues we have discussed many times here.

Fast forward to the last few years.
I moved into the Spokane, Washington area a few years ago.
I formed a gaming group, and wanted to run it at the local county
library. I was able to do so, but under some rather stringent
restrictions (these rules apply to all the local city and county
libraries in various forms), we could only use the facility once per
month, rather than weekly, and we could not book further out than 2
months at a time.

I noted there were zero RPG related books or other content at these
libraries. Also, when I let it slip at one point that we were role
playing gaming, the librarian said "we don't allow that here", I quickly
added that we were also a Tolkien literary group, and that the games
were supplemental. She gave me a skeptical look, but said "well that is
okay then". I ran into a similar incident at a different county library
as well.

After a few months, I went in to continue the booking time, and found we
had been bumped for some "Christian Community Awareness" group. Every
time I went in during the next few months to try to book a time, the
slots were all taken. I then tried at another library, and they said our
group was no longer allowed to book a time. I asked why, and they
indicated that we had "used too many bookings through the year", and
that we could book again in another 6 months.

I have found that most folks outside of the gaming community here in
Spokane have either no idea what RPGing (outside of computer-based) is,
or have a VERY negative view of gamers. My youngest son for years has
not been allowed to have his best friend play at our house once they
found out that RPGing took place there (they indicated it was strongly
against their Christian beliefs and that their preacher actively
preached against it, and the Harry Potter books, and others as leading
away from the Bible and such) <sigh>.

So, even after all these years, there is still that entrenched attitude
that I ran into back in the 80's.

Meanwhile, I have gaming at my house, or other's houses. Others game at
comic book and hobby stores. And I run an annual Tolkien-gaming
convention here.

I had asked to submit various RPG books donated to the library, but they
declined them, claiming there were not "appropriate" to their
collection. This was after having a guest speaker at MerpCon III back in
2007who also worked with the library system, and gave a speech on RPGs
in libraries (Cason Snow). I had followed up on his suggestions that
libraries would be happy to accept such donations. I have only tried at
one county and one city library so far.

They _were_ willing to accept our quarterly magazine (when I brought in
a hard copy) that is Tolkien-centric, when I pitched it as a literary
magazine (leaving out that it was ALSO Tolkien-gaming too), however they
said we needed to get ISSN numbers to have it added (http://omzine.org
).

I haven't made any efforts in the past two years after running into
these issues.

Cheers!
--
------
-Hawke
http://www.rpgresearch.com
The mission: A large scale, long term, multi-variable, triple-blind
research
study on the therapeutic aspects of role playing gaming. The purpose
is to determine the causal characteristics of role playing games, rather
than relying on correlative data as other studies have done in the past.
(509) 481-5437
RPG Research Project beginning in 2003 and continuing.
Retired Computer Scientist.
Recreation Therapist & Research Scientist (in training).
Role Playing Gamer since 1979.
Game Master since 1984.
"Holistic medicine treats the person rather than the disease,
its concern lies with the 'whole person' and with permitting
individuals to assume self-responsibility for their own health.
Whereas illness is the sole concern of 'traditional medicine',
holistic 'well medicine' deals with wellness and health promotion"

On Wednesday, November 18, 2009 03:48:24 am M. Alan Thomas II wrote:
> Hello, all!
>
> I feel that I ought to apologize for not joining the new mailing list
> sooner; I'm an RD and the car-pga.org webmaster last I checked, so I
> really ought to be more involved. In any case, I've been busy getting
> my M.S. in Library and Information Science*, so I should probably say
> something about RPGs in libraries now that I'm here.
>
> *I graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in
> August; I'm now in St. Louis.
>
> RPGs in libraries isn't exactly a new idea; RPGs have probably been
> played in libraries for as long as there have been RPGs, and I
> certainly remember running across 1st edition AD&D supplements in my
> local library when I was younger. However, I don't know that RPGs in
> libraries have ever been pushed much. We have an opportunity to
> change that right now, and it's been handed to us by modern video
> games, of all things. You see, video games got librarians to finally
> realize that they had to start looking at games and gaming in
> libraries if they wanted to continue serving as storytelling and
> cultural preservation centers, especially where youth are concerned.
>
> As W.J. Walton has already pointed out, we just had the 2nd annual
> National Gaming Day @ Your Library. Unfortunately, traditional RPGs
> were not widely represented. What we should probably do when pitching
> RPGs in libraries is to connect the concept to the already-existing
> movement to put games and gaming in libraries. When confronted by a
> library that is not already working in that direction, pitching the
> entire movement may be necessary; if the library can't accept other
> forms of games and gaming, they're not going to accept RPGs no matter
> what we may think about the relative merits of the different types of
> games. Here's a quick list of a few major groups and sites involved
> in games and gaming in libraries:
>
> _American Library Association (ALA)_
> http://connect.ala.org/gaming Games and Gaming (Member Initiative
> Group)
> http://connect.ala.org/node/70744 Gaming Interest Group (YALSA -
> Young Adult Library Services Association)
> http://ngd.ala.org/ National Gaming Day @ Your Library
> http://wikis.ala.org/professionaltips/index.php/Gaming Professional
> tips
> http://lists.ala.org/sympa/info/gaminginlibraries Mailing list (not
> sure how active it is)
> http://gaming.ala.org/resources/ Resources (not sure how much this is
> updated; the gaming.ala.org subsite has problems)
>
> _Libraries, Literacy, and Gaming_
> http://librarygamingtoolkit.org/ "The Librarian's Guide to Gaming: An
> Online Toolkit for Building Gaming @ Your Library"
> http://librarygamingtoolkit.org/advocacy.html Their advocacy how-to
> page
>
> _LibGaming_
> http://groups.google.com/group/LibGaming The LibGaming mailing list
> here on Google (I notice that W.J. Walton is over there already)
>
> _Games in Libraries_
> http://www.gamesinlibraries.org/ A podcast with a very good
> bibliography of links for each episode
> http://www.gamesinlibraries.org/course/ The site for the Games in
> Libraries YouTube course that ran this past June
> http://connect.ala.org/node/74116 ALA-hosted discussion area for the
> Games in Libraries YouTube course
>
> I haven't had time to review all of the above myself, so I can't
> personally endorse them, but I have reasons for trusting each, even
> if they currently neglect RPGs. As a side note, I notice that Beth
> Gallaway (http://informationgoddess.info/), who seems to be a one-
> woman gaming-in-libraries advocacy machine, is involved in almost
> all of them.
>
> In service,
> M. Alan Thomas II
> http://www.car-pga.org/
>
> --
>
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