On Sunday, June 29, at the American Library Association Conference in Philadelphia, our User Experience Librarian Eric Jeitner, along with Temple's English & Communication Librarian, Kristina De Voe, co-presented a poster entitled "Leveling Up Information Literacy: Library Instruction & Tabletop RPGs in Conversation." The poster explored relationships between one-shot library instruction and tabletop role-playing games (RPGs), based on a qualitative content analysis of professional literature and community-generated content (blogs, videos, podcasts, etc.) from the past ten years. Focusing on concepts of identity, agency, communication, and reflection, the presenters offered a “character sheet” of collected tips and best practices for enhancing one-shot library instruction. Foundational knowledge covering RPG definitions, critical discourses from RPG player-critics, and performance theory were included, as well as novel ideas for incorporating an RPG ethos into the library classroom.
This poster shared preliminary findings from Eric's research. He and his co-author will continue their research and draw more connections and conclusions in their upcoming article. Stay tuned!