Location, location, location!

I was very excited when I first discovered geocaching and location-based gaming a few months ago, and now everything seems to be about “where”.

What is geocaching?

Geocaching is an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called “geocaches” or “caches”) anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and “treasure,” usually toys or trinkets of little value. Today, well over 800,000 geocaches are registered on various websites devoted to the pastime.

And location-based gaming?

A location-based game (or location-enabled game) is one in which the game play somehow evolves and progresses via a player’s location. Thus, location-based games almost always support some kind of localization technology, for example by using satellite positioning like GPS. “Urban gaming” or “Street Games” are typically multi-player location-based games played out on city streets and built up urban environments.

To my mind, these forms of games and libraries seem to be made for each other. First, and I believe most importantly, they create a means of uniting the virtual and the real worlds, allowing people to explore both the library building and its resources. Second, they engage people and create community through story telling (which I have posted about before), and encourage those ephemeral real life experiences, the sudden discovery of a new idea or place, that can be transformative. Third, they seem to have a wider appeal across age groups than traditional console games, and allow for family or team co-operation and interaction.

A few libraries have already taken up the idea. The most interesting example is the location based game Scoot from Australia, which in the past has involved the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, State Library of Victoria, National Gallery of Victoria, the Arts Centre and the Melbourne Museum. The Shifted Librarian also had a recent post that gives a great example of using geocaching in libraries.

For those who are interested, two events have taken place recently that featured some wonderful information. The first is Where 2.0, that had a great presentation by the founder of Geocaching.com, Jeremy Irish, covering the basics of game design. He mentions the new platform he has developed, Wherigo, that seems to have a lot of potential for creative uses of the technology with minimal expense and knowledge, while avoiding some of the legal issues associated with geocaching. The second is Come Out & Play, which focuses on location-based gaming. The recent SXSW Festival included a panel on location based gaming which featured Catherine Herdlick, one of the organizers of the festival.

So, grab your cellphone or GPS and get out there!

As I have already written on the connections between storytelling and social software, I have decided to publish one final post on the subject.

This is a wonderful presentation by Chris Abani at the TED conference on the connection between narrative and place and how “what we know about how to be who we are” comes from the stories we tell.

The Chinese American Librarians Association (an affiliate of the American Library Association) is collecting donations to assist those devastated by the recent earthquake in Sichuan Province. For more information please visit their donations page.

To continue from my previous post on story telling and social networks, I’ve come across another excellent piece of software (thanks to Museum 2.0) that allows people to tell collaborative stories.

VoiceThread is…

an online media album that can hold essentially any type of media (images, documents and videos) and allows people to make comments in 5 different ways – using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam) – and share them with anyone they wish. They can even be exported to an Archival Movie for offline use on a DVD or video-enabled MP3 player. A VoiceThread allows group conversations to be collected and shared in one place, from anywhere in the world.

If you are curious, I suggest that you go to the site and experiment with it by setting up a free account. While rather limited, it will allow you to get a feel for the software. Although there are other programs that allow for you to post images and then comment on them as a slideshow, the collaborative aspect and ease of use set VoiceThread apart.

An interesting use for VoiceThread in a public library, that would create engagement with and among the community, would be to get patrons to submit photos of their favorite places and people in their neighbourhoods and them allow both them and others to comment on them, creating a collective and collaborative conversation.

I have created a small VoiceThread on a new section of my blog. Enjoy and please feel free to add comments if you have a VoiceThread account.

If Walter Fisher is right , and people are essentially storytellers, then we should all be logging in to Linkory. This site allows you to post you memories along with images or video, which…

…will act as the first link in a chain. Others in the global community with similar experiences will add to the chain. This powerful and exciting Linkory process will reveal the complete recollection of an event, enhance the experience for all participants, and generate an historical sequence.

It will be interesting to see how Linkory develops and the nature of the social networks that spring up around it.

When it comes to using technology, narrative, and memory to create community, a more interesting approach, in that it is often tied to place, is digital storytelling, which is the use of digital media to record and share stories. The Center for Digital Storytelling and Creative Narrations offer plenty of examples and resources for those who are curious.

And don’t forget that May 16 is the International Day for Sharing Life Stories.