At the end of the twentieth century, RE/Search published three volumes dedicated to the “Incredib... more At the end of the twentieth century, RE/Search published three volumes dedicated to the “Incredibly Strange.” Looking a cinema and music, these were forays into the unconventional and unpopular, the avant-garde and in-bad-taste, outsider and oppositional cultural artefacts. This project produced an archeology of marginal media with decidedly countercultural sentiment which has been influential in intellectual attempts to comprehend weird in culture; from Washburn & Demo’s (2013) “Bad Music” anthology and Hoberman and Rosenbaum (2009) adventures in “Midnight Movie” culture to Jeffrey Sconce’s (1995) conception of the “paracinema” community. Chris Charla has recently revived the strange, this time looking specifically at games with a series of zines (a punky format of which RE/Search would most certainly approve) called Incredibly Strange Games. Here the tone is softer and more celebratory, lovingly exhibiting the unusual and unplayed. Inspired by the ethos of the “incredibly strange” and a personal penchant for shovelware, shitty games (kusoge), the Simple Series by 505 and neo-situationist numbers like the LaLaLand games, this “Seriously Weird Edition” seeks to take weird seriously. A venture in five parts, this collection brings together a variety of strange tales of videogames demonstrating that the weird can be wonderful and, of course, well played.
Library Technology Reports vol.46 no.8 This issue of Library Technology Reports, conceived and co... more Library Technology Reports vol.46 no.8 This issue of Library Technology Reports, conceived and coordinated by the American Library Association's (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom, focuses on current topics and concerns around the intersections of technology, security, and intellectual freedom in libraries. As libaries incresingly move beyond the provision of print material and into their expanding roles as providers of digital resources and services, intellectual freedom concerns have been magnified as they apply to a range of complex new issues. A number of prominent library professionals contributed their expertise for this issue. Authors and topics include Barbara M. Jones on Libraries, Technology and the Culture of Privacy; Eli Neiburger on User-Generated Content; Sarah Houghton-Jan on Internet Filtering; Jason Griffey on Social Networking and the Library; and Deborah Caldwell-Stone on RFID in Libraries.
The emergence of Web 2.0, with its emphasis on user-generated content, has tremendous potential f... more The emergence of Web 2.0, with its emphasis on user-generated content, has tremendous potential for library marketing, services, and community building. However, the open nature of these communications and the ambiguous nature of authorship creates major privacy and security challenges. This chapter of Privacy and Freedom of Information in 21st-Century Libraries examines those issues in depth, and provides best practices for addressing some uncertainties.
Imagine: Teen and pre-teen boys, twenty-somethings, parents, and even younger kids streaming into... more Imagine: Teen and pre-teen boys, twenty-somethings, parents, and even younger kids streaming into the library. It's your library's monthly videogame tournament! Step boldly into a new arena of library programming with lifetime gamer and Ann Arbor's library technology manager, Eli Neiburger.As a leading expert on producing videogame tournaments and events, Neiburger explains why videogame programming holds huge potential for libraries. He offers the complete toolkit. Follow these practical and proven guidelines to get answers to all your questions - from convincing the skeptics to getting audience feedback through your blog.Learn how to serve this underserved audience and: gain familiarity with the basics of gaming culture, software, and hardware; understand how videogaming events fit into the library; learn what works and what doesn't from the experiences of the nation's leading expert; conduct a tournament in your library - including how to plan, set up, and run...
The library was once a temple of books. But much of what filled library shelves is now available ... more The library was once a temple of books. But much of what filled library shelves is now available online, without you having to leave your computer or mobile. What are libraries doing to ensure they don’t become extinct? Well, it appears the library of the future will be a content creator, a publisher, and a conserver of ‘unique’ stuff. Guests: Eli Neiburger Associate Director for IT & Production, Ann Arbor District Library Joe Murphy Librarian, technology trend analyst, Director of Library Futures at Innovative Interfaces Jane Cowell Director of Regional Access and Public Libraries, State Library of Queensland Simon Groth Writer, editor, of fiction and non-fiction. Director of if:book Australia, exploring the future of the book
Picture a garner for a moment. A teenage boy, probably, sitting in a dark basement on a smelly co... more Picture a garner for a moment. A teenage boy, probably, sitting in a dark basement on a smelly couch, bathed in that flickering glow, slack-jawed and drooling. All alone, completely anti-social, shutting out the world. Right? Well not exactly. It's not that that scenario doesn't exist within the gaming culture, but video games are rarely a solitary activity. The positive social aspects of gaming are wide-ranging and an important part of the social habits of the gaming generation. Since Pong (which was popular thirty years ago already), the focus of video games has been to play against your friends, get the whole family involved, and be the best in the neighborhood. While the equipment is a little more complex, video games are still games, and just like canasta, Monopoly, or euchre, they're just not as much fun to play solo. Video Games Are Positive Social Activities There are reasons why games have been a central component of leisure culture for millennia: they provide m...
At the end of the twentieth century, RE/Search published three volumes dedicated to the “Incredib... more At the end of the twentieth century, RE/Search published three volumes dedicated to the “Incredibly Strange.” Looking a cinema and music, these were forays into the unconventional and unpopular, the avant-garde and in-bad-taste, outsider and oppositional cultural artefacts. This project produced an archeology of marginal media with decidedly countercultural sentiment which has been influential in intellectual attempts to comprehend weird in culture; from Washburn & Demo’s (2013) “Bad Music” anthology and Hoberman and Rosenbaum (2009) adventures in “Midnight Movie” culture to Jeffrey Sconce’s (1995) conception of the “paracinema” community. Chris Charla has recently revived the strange, this time looking specifically at games with a series of zines (a punky format of which RE/Search would most certainly approve) called Incredibly Strange Games. Here the tone is softer and more celebratory, lovingly exhibiting the unusual and unplayed. Inspired by the ethos of the “incredibly strange” and a personal penchant for shovelware, shitty games (kusoge), the Simple Series by 505 and neo-situationist numbers like the LaLaLand games, this “Seriously Weird Edition” seeks to take weird seriously. A venture in five parts, this collection brings together a variety of strange tales of videogames demonstrating that the weird can be wonderful and, of course, well played.
Library Technology Reports vol.46 no.8 This issue of Library Technology Reports, conceived and co... more Library Technology Reports vol.46 no.8 This issue of Library Technology Reports, conceived and coordinated by the American Library Association's (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom, focuses on current topics and concerns around the intersections of technology, security, and intellectual freedom in libraries. As libaries incresingly move beyond the provision of print material and into their expanding roles as providers of digital resources and services, intellectual freedom concerns have been magnified as they apply to a range of complex new issues. A number of prominent library professionals contributed their expertise for this issue. Authors and topics include Barbara M. Jones on Libraries, Technology and the Culture of Privacy; Eli Neiburger on User-Generated Content; Sarah Houghton-Jan on Internet Filtering; Jason Griffey on Social Networking and the Library; and Deborah Caldwell-Stone on RFID in Libraries.
The emergence of Web 2.0, with its emphasis on user-generated content, has tremendous potential f... more The emergence of Web 2.0, with its emphasis on user-generated content, has tremendous potential for library marketing, services, and community building. However, the open nature of these communications and the ambiguous nature of authorship creates major privacy and security challenges. This chapter of Privacy and Freedom of Information in 21st-Century Libraries examines those issues in depth, and provides best practices for addressing some uncertainties.
Imagine: Teen and pre-teen boys, twenty-somethings, parents, and even younger kids streaming into... more Imagine: Teen and pre-teen boys, twenty-somethings, parents, and even younger kids streaming into the library. It's your library's monthly videogame tournament! Step boldly into a new arena of library programming with lifetime gamer and Ann Arbor's library technology manager, Eli Neiburger.As a leading expert on producing videogame tournaments and events, Neiburger explains why videogame programming holds huge potential for libraries. He offers the complete toolkit. Follow these practical and proven guidelines to get answers to all your questions - from convincing the skeptics to getting audience feedback through your blog.Learn how to serve this underserved audience and: gain familiarity with the basics of gaming culture, software, and hardware; understand how videogaming events fit into the library; learn what works and what doesn't from the experiences of the nation's leading expert; conduct a tournament in your library - including how to plan, set up, and run...
The library was once a temple of books. But much of what filled library shelves is now available ... more The library was once a temple of books. But much of what filled library shelves is now available online, without you having to leave your computer or mobile. What are libraries doing to ensure they don’t become extinct? Well, it appears the library of the future will be a content creator, a publisher, and a conserver of ‘unique’ stuff. Guests: Eli Neiburger Associate Director for IT & Production, Ann Arbor District Library Joe Murphy Librarian, technology trend analyst, Director of Library Futures at Innovative Interfaces Jane Cowell Director of Regional Access and Public Libraries, State Library of Queensland Simon Groth Writer, editor, of fiction and non-fiction. Director of if:book Australia, exploring the future of the book
Picture a garner for a moment. A teenage boy, probably, sitting in a dark basement on a smelly co... more Picture a garner for a moment. A teenage boy, probably, sitting in a dark basement on a smelly couch, bathed in that flickering glow, slack-jawed and drooling. All alone, completely anti-social, shutting out the world. Right? Well not exactly. It's not that that scenario doesn't exist within the gaming culture, but video games are rarely a solitary activity. The positive social aspects of gaming are wide-ranging and an important part of the social habits of the gaming generation. Since Pong (which was popular thirty years ago already), the focus of video games has been to play against your friends, get the whole family involved, and be the best in the neighborhood. While the equipment is a little more complex, video games are still games, and just like canasta, Monopoly, or euchre, they're just not as much fun to play solo. Video Games Are Positive Social Activities There are reasons why games have been a central component of leisure culture for millennia: they provide m...
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Inspired by the ethos of the “incredibly strange” and a personal penchant for shovelware, shitty games (kusoge), the Simple Series by 505 and neo-situationist numbers like the LaLaLand games, this “Seriously Weird Edition” seeks to take weird seriously. A venture in five parts, this collection brings together a variety of strange tales of videogames demonstrating that the weird can be wonderful and, of course, well played.
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Inspired by the ethos of the “incredibly strange” and a personal penchant for shovelware, shitty games (kusoge), the Simple Series by 505 and neo-situationist numbers like the LaLaLand games, this “Seriously Weird Edition” seeks to take weird seriously. A venture in five parts, this collection brings together a variety of strange tales of videogames demonstrating that the weird can be wonderful and, of course, well played.