This book examines the expanding impact of games and play on public libraries as manifested in their spaces, programs, design, and support for gamemaking communities. It reveals how the rise of play in public libraries is connected to a broader digital culture.
Dale Leorke is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies, based at Tampere University in Finland. His research focuses on the intersection of games, play and public space. His research interests include mobile and location-based games, participatory planning and civic engagement, and the transformation of public libraries in the digital era. His books include Location-based Gaming: Play in Public Space (2018), Public Libraries in the Smart City (2018) and the edited collection Games and Play in the Creative, Smart and Ecological City (2020).
Danielle Wyatt is a cultural researcher at the School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne. She writes and researches about the public life of culture, particularly the intersection between cultural spaces, networked technologies, arts practice and cultural policy. Recent work has been published in the book, Public Libraries in the Smart City (co-authored with Dale Leorke), in the anthology, Communicative Cities and Urban Space edited by Scott McQuire and Sun Wei, and in the International Journal of Cultural Policy. Other research has been published in the journals New Media and Society, City, Culture and Society, and Field: A Journal of Socially-Engaged Art Criticism.
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
Preface
Chapter One: Play in Public Culture
Chapter Two: Collecting Play: The Early History of Games in Public Libraries
Chapter Three: The Well-Played Library: Games in Contemporary Libraries
Chapter Four: Pervasive Play: The Spatial and Temporal Transformation of Libraries
Chapter Five: Partners in Play: Libraries and Gamemaking Communities
Chapter Six: Revisiting the Library as Play
Appendix :List of Interviewees & Case Studies
Bibliography
About the Authors
Based on their impressive fieldwork and the most recent research, the authors have here produced a volume that is of high value to both game and library scientists, as well as for practical library work. — J. Tuomas Harviainen, Associate Professor of Information Practices, Tampere University