The Carnegie Mellon library system has released (in beta) two games meant to get at using the library system. The first game, Within Range, is not the most interesting but it asks students to re-shelve books based on LoC subjects and the Dewey Decimal System. Useful for helping them find books in the brick and mortar library but not riveting gaming. The second game, I'll Get It, is a much like Diner Dash (only in a library). You have to look up the patron's topic and choose from 2 books or 2 internet sources what you will bring back to the patron based upon their research question. This one is a bit more interesting especially since it goes in waves and gets more harried as time passes.
How effective is this? Can we teach students how to use a virtual library and expect them to extrapolate that out to the real world? Or will they simply google the topic and go from there?
via Dennis Jerz