2019 Virtual Symposium on Information & Technology in the Arts and Humanities Video Games and Information Science

The theme for this year's Virtual Symposium is "Video Games and Information Science." Video games capture the imagination of hundreds of millions worldwide and comprise a major industry worldwide. What are the information needs of “gamers”? How can their experiences be documented and understood? How can libraries support and engage these communities?

Four presentations will answer these questions from different perspectives. A diverse range of librarians and information scholars will present their research, methodology, and experiences studying and engaging gaming enthusiasts.

Presenters

Dr. Olle Sköld is a senior lecturer at the Department of ALM, Uppsala University. He is the author of 'Documenting Video game Communities', for which he received ASIS&T:s 2018 ProQuest Doctoral Dissertation Award. Sköld's research is characterized by a broad interest in the ALM field, digital cultures, and digital humanities. Previous work includes studies of information practices, documentation, knowledge production, memory-making, video game preservation, and the practices and information systems of archivists.

Marc Schmalz is a doctoral student at the University of Washington Information School, where he is a member of the GAMER (GAME Research) Group. With more than two decades of experience as a technology and game professional, his research interests involve entertainment software development from an information systems perspective. Specifically, he is interested in the ways in which self-identification with IT affects worker behavior on IT project teams, and finds digital games to be a particularly salient segment in which to pursue these studies. Marc’s work has appeared in The Data Base for Advances in Information Systems and Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, and conference proceedings including the European Conference of Information Systems, Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, and the iConference.

Michael Hughes is an instruction librarian and associate professor at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. His research interests include game cultures, player-generated content, and media fandom generally. Michael's writing can be found in scholarly journals, including First Monday and portal: Libraries and the Academy, and at VGMO: Video Game Music Online. He is currently researching the history of video game fanzines.

Christina Boyle is an Instruction/Reference Librarian and OER Coordinator at the College of Staten Island (CUNY) in Staten Island, NY. She has previously taught English Composition to freshman students, and now teaches a research course within the library along with her general duties as librarian. Christina focuses her studies in emerging technology as it relates to higher education and libraries, open educational resources, and library outreach. She is intrigued by the potential for popular culture, such as video games, cosplay, and graphic novels, to be used as teaching and learning tools within academic libraries. She has published and presented on video games in libraries and on memes for academic use. Christina hopes to continue exploring this topic and how it relates to libraries, while looking ahead to other emergent technologies and their role in academic libraries.