A post at Joy’s Wanderings today reminded me of an idea I had 3 or 4 years ago. Joy asks -

“Could games take the place of on-line tutorials at library websites?”

When The Sims first came out, I thought it would be really great if there could be a game in the same vein which taught people how to use a library, perhaps by building one. You would have an empty building, in which you could place computers, books, resources, newspapers, bean bags, whatever took your fancy. You would get to see how patrons felt about your services (like you can in any Maxis game). You would get to see which placement of resources worked best. After you’d built the library, you would then be whisked off into some kind of educational realm where you’d learn about what the resources offer and how to use them. A bit like my favourite games of the past, say Dinosaur Discovery (the linked version is wayyy more recent than the one I used), where you have a lot of fun charting around the waters but you’d learn a thng or two about maths and strategy along the way.

Perhaps librarians could be in on the fun if an online MMORPG-style segment was built in - need help during the game? It’ll be right there.

I flirted briefly with the idea of creating such a game with Flash, but never got around to it. Now that games are the newest, biggest things in libraries, someone may have the time and inclination to make one that can teach you how to use the library in a fun way.

Update: What was I saying? Second Life launches libraries. Jenny’s post has more. Sounds like fun.