When Analog Meets Digital: Chess, the Internet, and Your Library Community

From TechSource Gaming Symposium

Presenters: Blair Parsons, Brazos Price (Austin (TX) Public Library)

Description: Chess has been around for thousands of years. Played by princes and paupers alike, the game's portability has seen it played in castles, city parks, battlefields, and schools. So, why are more teens not playing in the library? With an ever-growing emphasis on new technologies, many teens bypass the too-traditional chess. Through the amalgamation of traditional chess with modern telecommunication tools, we have brought chess back and are seeing teens throughout the library begin to play, analyze, and read about the game. Sure, we still have one-on-one games in person, but we are also playing digitally, one library against another: a board set-up at each library and moves either dictated between the supervising librarians using email, text messaging, or phone. This approach fosters collaboration, teamwork, and dialogue as the teen crew at each library examines the physical board, decides on a move, signals that move to the competing library, and then waits for word of that library's response move.

Intended Audiences:

• Administrators and others who hold the purse strings and approve policies
• Pretty much any librarian
• Youth librarians

at:

• Public libraries
• School libraries

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