Library Blogs

Here are our top games from last week, with both copies of Melee still making the list.

Authored by Ben Nanamaker: Some of you may remember playing some version of the Carmen Sandiego series of computer and video games that were popular in the 80s and 90s. Others might better remember the PBS tv show "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?", if not for the content, then for introducing the world to Rockapella. Well, depending on your opinion of Facebook games, I have either good or bad news for you.

Here are the top 10 games played in the archive this past week. For those of you who don't know, people are allowed to bring in their own copies of games as long as they clear it with us. The guy who brought in his own copy of Melee really wanted Melee to be higher on this list, so he got his wish. Our copy is number 4, AND his copy made the list. Way to be dedicated.

It was our first week back, and the archive was busy as ever as everyone got used to more game stations and a bigger room. The top ten games played in the archive last week were the usual contenders.

Books? Yeah, we've got them too...Recently we've started to add novels, comics and art books related to video games to the collection. Like Warcraft and Halo novels, The Art of... books, and the like. These books will be in the regular AAEL books collection (i.e. not kept down in the archive room) so you can check them out and read them like any other book in the library.

Now that we're mostly moved in, we thought we'd take the time to post our new use policies here. Major changes include keeping coats and backpacks by the entrance, and checking out games so that we can track them more easily.

Here are a few photos of the move in progress.

The game Bibliobouts, created by SI students from the University of Michigan, is getting more press as they prepare to be released for classroom use for the Winter 2011 and Fall 2011 semesters. Bibliobouts is "an online social activity that teaches players the skills they need to research academic papers," and can be used across disciplines.Read more about it here, or check out the demo here by entering demo@bibliobouts.org as the email address and "demo" as the password.

We will most like be opening the CVGA in our new location on Monday Jan 10 at Noon. This of course assumes that things go mostly as planned over the next several days (There is still painting and electrical work left to be done...)

While you are waiting for the new CVGA room to open, relive your times spent in the old with this awesome panoramic PhotoSynth of the old CVGA room. (You'll need Microsoft's Silverlight extension installed in your browser.)