Having established a research question and a possible creative approach, my next step was to consider in more detail how a game played within the library might achieve this. This led to the development of a statement that would guide my research ethics process (Research Ethics Form):
- To create a library journaling/solo roleplaying session (open to all to attend and hosted in LCC’s newly refurbished Learning Lounge). The session will use a range of gaming and serendipitous methods to draw prompts from a curated selection of material from the library’s various collections. It will draw from current library research literature on gaming and chance as modes of information discovery. In this case new and intersectional relations are encouraged via a curational process, engaging with themes of coloniality and climate justice that are found in the LCC collection (potentially the historical print, zines, and photobooks/photojournalism collections). The aim being to encourage participants to creatively experience a storytelling experience where they encounter information (and connect unexpected information) from a perspective other than their own. This playful approach will be used as an alternative adjunct to more traditional social justice approaches, which focus on critical social discourse. It will aim to be creatively rewarding, fun and illuminating.
- This session will form part of the autumn term launch events for the LCC library’s new Learning Lounge space. It will be set outside the criteria of any specific course or level of study. Students from all sites – as well as staff – are encouraged to sign up. There will be a cap of 18 participants based on resources and space requirements. The session is anticipated to take 2 hours.
- Research will be made via an analysis of the completed participants’ journals (following an arts-based research model (Leavy, 2018) and using a coding of the journals following qualitative research methods (Cohen, Morrison and Manion, 2007)). Students will be asked if they would be happy for this to take place, with an explanation that all analysis would be anonymous and that the research aim would be to use these to help understand how successful alternative discovery methods are at exploring our collection in.
Following this I began a more systematic review of literature related to sessions of this type.
Games and serendipity as an approach to learning in the library
Walsh’s collection of library-based learning games provided my first thoughts regarding the potential of playful approaches for my session (Walsh, 2018). His game SEEK, which used the dealing of assignment cards to players as a way of mapping “detective work” as a roleplaying element onto the often dryer task of resource assessment and authority analysis, started me thinking about the ways tasks can be assigned playfully (2018, p.68-71). Whilst inspiring, the games he laid out here put their focus on information literacy, rather than the narrative driven and intentionally creative approach I was pursuing. In a comparative work, focussed on the gallery/heritage sector, a different approach was put forward by Champion and Emery, one which placed value on the content and meaning found in encountered books or exhibitions, and the development of more thoughtful, reflective and creative games that communed with its sources; these spoke more clearly to the aims of my session. (Champion and Emery,2024).
A different study, entitled Research for Expired Outdoors, carried out in Norway (Borchgrevink, 2024) saw the collection of weeded books from local libraries relocated as mini collections in alternative spaces, where passers-by could pick them up and take away unexpected information; counter creative responses were then made including textual street collages. This idea of curating an unexpected encounter spoke to the aims of my game, and confirmed the appeal and fun experienced in such a process. If this idea could be steered further, to align material which hadn’t just been randomly selected, but rather coordinated to open-up critical and social justice themes, it could create a “transformative information encounter or TIE”, a meaningful transformation or understanding, generated by the coordination of new or unexpected data. (Lowe, 2023). From this point forward my game started to cohere.
Whilst there was clear evidence for curating a book collection and basing games around it, according to recent literature in library studies, I was still looking to expand an understanding of the roleplaying element of this process. Interestingly, this is a theme little explored in library literature. I turned instead to a piece from the field of psychology and counselling practice within the university sector. (Karayigit and Ozier, 2023) Here culturally empathy is explored in a journaling scenario, with students taking on the role of popular characters from film who have experienced prejudice. Even though the aims of these sessions were very different to those I was developing, I did take away from the study the power of empathy and potentially how in my game by taking on the roles of other characters (with very different lives to those of the players) a conduit for channelling TIEs could be created. A few weeks after reading this article I attended a talk hosted at LCC Library by Amita Nijhawan, where she talked about the playful encounter with library and research sources as part of the creation of characters in her novels. (Nijhawan, 2024) Listening to her process I became convinced that empathy and character creation should be the focus of my game.
The library and decolonisation
Alongside the debates relating to the use of games in the library teaching context, citational justice and decolonisation remained key aims of the project. Crilly’s literature review of recent decolonising research within libraries (Crilly, 2024) provided the launchpad for much of my reading, however it was her earlier piece on narrative expansions (Crilly and Everitt, 2022) that set the focus for my work. Here the step is taken beyond representation and inclusion, speaking powerfully to changes in curriculum being created by reflection on and additions to reading lists facilitated by the library, and the important critical reflections and discussions it generates within the classroom and students’ work as a result. I also discovered the inspiring book Arts-based methods for decolonising participatory research (Seppälä, Sarantou and Miettinen, 2021), which provided a whole range of creative collaborative projects that helped steer my thinking as to the practical realisation of my project – literally how could I create a creative moment that would allow a thinking for its participants empathetically beyond their own lives.
Journaling Games
The third aspect of research I undertook, looked at a range of journaling games, for inspiration and technical guidance. Many of these are published in print runs, and as such and for a separate library collections acquisition project I collated a list of possible items to acquire. I also looked at the wide array of games made within the DIY gaming community and shared through https://itch.io/physical-games/tag-journaling.
One particular game, The Last Tea Shop (Spring Villages, 2022), caught my attention. It used archetypes as keywords to generate stories that reflected on the lives of characters who visit a Japanese tea shop just before passing onto the afterlife. It asked the player to consider a range of abstract prompts and put themselves into the place of someone else trying to understand a problem in their life. As an empathetic foil, this mechanic was something I could develop in my own game.
References
Borchgrevink, H. (2024) ‘Finding objects, connecting dots: Exploring serendipity as interruptive artistic strategy for audience interaction in public spaces’, Nordic Journal of Art & Research, 13(2). doi: 10.7577/ar.5797.
Champion, E. and Emery, S. (2024) ‘Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums [GLAM]-focussed Games and Gamification’, in Nichols, J. and Mehra, B. (eds.) Data Curation and Information Systems Design from Australasia: Implications for Cataloguing of Vernacular Knowledge in Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums Emerald Publishing Limited, pp. 67–83.
Cohen, L., Morrison, K. and Manion, L. (2007) Research methods in education. Sixth edition. edn. London: Routledge.
Crilly, J. (2024) ‘Diversifying, decentering and decolonising academic libraries: a literature review’, New Review of Academic Librarianship, 30(2-3), pp. 112–152. doi: 10.1080/13614533.2023.2287450.
Crilly, J. and Everitt, R. (2022) Narrative expansions: interpreting decolonisation in academic libraries. London: Facet Publishing.
Karayigit, C. and Ozier, M. (2023) ‘Using character connection journaling to develop cultural empathy’, British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 51(5), pp. 727–738. doi: 10.1080/03069885.2021.1961210.
Leavy, P. (2018) Handbook of arts-based research. New York, New York, London, England]: The Guilford Press.
Lowe, C.V. (2023) ‘Promoting transformative encounters in libraries and archives’, Journal of Documentation, 79(2), pp. 431–441. doi: 10.1108/JD-03-2022-0053.
Nijhawan, A. (2024) ‘Storytelling and Identity’ [Lecture]. Learning Lounge Talks, UAL, 29 October 2024
Seppälä, T., Sarantou, M. and Miettinen, S. (2021) Arts-based methods for decolonising participatory research. Milton: Taylor & Francis Group.
Spring Villages (2022) Last Tea Shop Classic. Available at: https://springvillager.itch.io/last-tea-shop (Accessed: Jan 7, 2025).
Walsh, A. (2018) The librarians’ book on teaching through games and play. Tallinn, Harju Maakond: Innovative Libraries.