TY - JOUR AU - Swiatek, Cécile AU - Gorsse, Myriam PY - 2016/08/08 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Playing games at the Library: Seriously? JF - LIBER Quarterly: The Journal of the Association of European Research Libraries JA - LIBER VL - 26 IS - 2 SE - Review papers DO - 10.18352/lq.10161 UR - https://liberquarterly.eu/article/view/10844 SP - 83-101 AB - <p>During the past ten years, libraries have been developing gaming activities from library board games to mystery games and immersive roleplaying games. This article aims at giving a general overview of gaming issues in French academic libraries. General gaming theories are quickly reviewed, basic keys are given about how and why to set up a gaming service and department at the academic library, concrete and recent initiatives are presented. This article focuses on non-virtual and public-oriented games that were already organised in and by libraries. More generally, it underlines how to use gaming activities for promoting organisational innovation. It concludes on the necessity to settle a strategy for gaming activities, to enforce management practices, and on the importance to publicise the initiatives by establishing a public gaming policy and programme, and by formalising communication plans, staff training and knowledge management. The results of this fact study highlight how gaming activities are becoming a new reality for libraries, which requires a proper management perspective.</p> ER -