4 To read or not to read - Wed 23 Mar 2011

If you couldn't already tell, I love to read. And while I might not be a particularly fast reader, I would definitely say I'm enthusiastic. 


However.


I have recently found myself, I hate to say, putting off and avoiding reading! Argh! 


The main cause for this literary lapse, is this - I am currently reading a Book Club book which I simply cannot seem to get excited about. Now, I understand that not all books can be exciting, or amazing or mind-blowingly stupendous. In reality, very few of the books I actually do enjoy reading are any of these things anyway. 


But a book must be compelling. It must make the reader want to keep going back to it, to make the reader think about the story and what might happen next even when they're off doing something completely different. 


For me, our Book Club book just doesn't have that compelling quality and I'm now worried that I may not even get it read before our next meeting (still two weeks away!). 


I'm really not sure what to do because the very reason I joined the Book Club was to make me read books I might not otherwise check out - to go that little bit beyond my sometimes narrow reading-comfort-zone and discover something new. But it's really such a struggle that it makes me feel exhausted!


To make matters worse, because I am feeling guilty about not reading the assigned book, I'm not reading anything at all! And I miss it desperately :( 


All my whining leads me to the main point of this post - Is it wrong to just give up and move on to reading something I think I'll enjoy? And if I do, what am I supposed to say at my Book Club meeting? Should I force myself to read the book in these precious few moments I have on this Earth, when really I'd rather be reading something else? Or should I just suck it up? I mean who knows - the last 400 pages might be better ...


Please post your suggestions and help me with this quandary!

5 Work and Play

It's not far-stretched to connect literacy and learning with games. When we're young, we're often taught games that are great fun, but that are also teaching us important skills that will carry us through the rest of our lives. 

As infants, we generally learn games that involve picking things up, moving things around and building things (all working on hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills). As young children, we start playing interactive games with others, perhaps pretending to be doctors, pilots or superheroes (all games teaching us social skills). Once old enough, we can start to learn games involving one of my favourite things - reading (think board games and of course, video games). Yay!

If you’re not sure about the connection between games and learning, why not take a look at this post by the Shifted Librarian.

How does this all relate to video games? I hear you ask. Excellent question.

Depending on the game, there are any number of skills the gamer is putting into practice at any one time. If you’re playing a racing game like Gran Turismo, you’re using hand-eye coordination, being involved in healthy competition and learning to deal with both success and failure, winning and losing (as opposed to the popular, but flawed, idea that everyone's a winner). 

Playing my favourite game, Fallout (3 or New Vegas, let’s not be picky here!) involves prioritising (deciding which quests to do and when), making choices (how you'll communicate with characters, whether you want to be good or evil) and living with the consequences (i.e. the game has different outcomes depending on what you choose to do).

A game like Singstar promotes collaboration, socialising and perhaps even stepping out of your comfort zone by singing in front of a crowd.

I could go on forever - but don’t worry, I’ll stop now.

The point I am making is this - I think games in libraries are a good thing, whether it be board games or video games. It's another way of getting kids and young adults into the library, and who knows? Maybe they’ll borrow a book on their way out! (Read, kids, read!)

The Amherst Village Library (part of the City of Gosnells’ Library Service) has Wii consoles that have proved to be very popular. After a little web trawling, I discovered the Brimbank Library Service in Melbourne also has Wii and Playstation 3 consoles. 

Does your library have video games? Let me know by commenting - I’d love to hear your opinion on how useful/fun/annoying/difficult you find them in libraries.