December 2023 | Volume XLI, Issue 4 »

Library Clue: Bringing Fun Back to the Library

December 7, 2023
Audrey Bokuniewicz, Waubonsee Community College

INTRODUCTION
Now is the perfect time for librarians to come up with fun ways to bring people back into library spaces! After finding fun ways to transition library activities online over the past few years, our next mission, should we choose to accept it, is to welcome patrons back to the library, ideally with a fun experience that will keep them coming back. To that end, here are a couple of inspiring examples I found of other librarians’ creative ways to either add fun to the online library experience, or to bring in-person fun safely back into the library, followed by a recap of a Library Clue game played here at Waubonsee Community College’s Todd Library. Hopefully, these ideas will provide you with some inspiration as well.

ONLINE LIBRARY ACTIVITIES
The first idea I found intriguing was a Harry Potter-themed “Hogwarts Digital Escape Room,” developed by Sydney Krawiec for the Peters Township Public Library in McMurray, Pennsylvania. This online game tapped into the popularity of the literary character Harry Potter to provide fun puzzles, clues, and questions for players to solve to successfully complete the activity. Its success also offered evidence in support of the idea that everyone loves a mystery!

Another idea I loved involved adding a fun mascot to online library videos to increase student engagement. In the article, “He’s Ready for His Close-Up: Peter the Anteater’s Guide to the Library,” librarians from the University of California-Irvine created a sock puppet version of their school mascot, Peter the Anteater, to feature in their library videos. This led to increased viewings of the videos, demonstrating that bringing an element of fun to the library is not just enjoyable, but also has the potential to increase usage statistics as an added bonus.

IN-PERSON LIBRARY ACTIVITIES
As library spaces were starting to reopen, I next viewed Paula Willey and Andria L. Amaral’s fantastic webinar, “The Candy Corn Question: Passive Programming that Pulls People In,” which details numerous examples of how to use displays and simple whiteboard questions like “Candy Corn: Love It or Hate It?” to get students who walk into the library to express their opinions in dialogue with library staff and fellow students, increasing their engagement and sense of belonging in the library, and demonstrating that even brief interactions can help students feel seen and validated.

My biggest inspiration came from Nichole Novak’s webinar, “Adding a Little Mystery to a University FYE [First Year Experience] Program: How Librarians Developed a Mystery Game to Teach Fundamental Search Skills to First Years,” which described the development of a library orientation mystery game with fun clues and puzzles tailored specifically to their university for the new students to work through to familiarize themselves with the library.

LIBRARY CLUE
With these inspirations, I began developing a mystery-themed orientation activity customized for students at Waubonsee Community College. I decided to borrow the basic idea of the board game Clue, revising the locations to ten areas in the library, and devising ten library-themed weapons and characters. In addition, I invented a Waubonsee-specific story to introduce the game to students. Then I made up a game card to pass out to students, and printed out several slightly different ones, changing the order of the locations so that the students would be spread throughout the library.

I used library-related, alliterative, color-themed names like Lcibrarian Lavender, Professor Pear, and Student Worker Sage for the characters. A creative coworker found graphics online to make the characters come to life, and then I used colorful construction paper to create a rainbow of different color backgrounds for the character cards.

For the clues, I created clue cards with alibis for each character; for example, “Professor Pear was observed on the stairway landing, studying a globe.” These were taped around the library in the matching location, each made of red construction paper with “Library Clue” on a liftable flap, and I reminded students to leave the clues in place for other players to find.

To begin the game, I told the students, “An incident has occurred in Todd Library. Researcher Rose has been found wandering in the library with a bump on her head and no memory of what happened. She only remembers that she was doing research on Chief Waubonsee, an area Indian chief who was rumored to have left buried treasure somewhere on the campus of Waubonsee Community College. As Rose is whisked off to the hospital to be checked for a concussion, we will be trying to solve the mystery of what happened to Rose: Who did it, with what instrument, and where in the library.”

It was late October, so the winning student who solved the mystery was rewarded by getting to pick first from a bowl of Halloween candy. With those instructions, the students set off with their game cards, searching for clues around the library. Once they had all the clues, solving the mystery took a few more minutes, as there were actually two clues to find in the Quiet Study Area, one indicating that Researcher Rose (the victim) was there, and the other indicating that Colonel Crimson (the perpetrator) was also there. A clue from a nearby area, the Archives, indicated that Archivist Amethyst had heard Researcher Rose exclaim, “Wow! It’s Chief Waubonsee’s long-lost treasure map!” This led to suspicion of the Archivist, but eventually the correct solution was determined: It was Colonel Crimson, with the Dictionary in the Quiet Study Area.

In the follow up afterwards, I explained, “Colonel Crimson, who was in the Quiet Study, also heard Researcher Rose’s exclamation, and impulsively used the Dictionary to knock her on the head and steal the Treasure map. When confronted, he confessed to the crime, and the stolen treasure map was returned.”

LEARNING GOAL
The activity fulfilled a few learning goals:

  1. Students became familiar with Todd Library.
  2. Students learned about the different types of activity that can be done in the library.
  3. Students were shown that library research has the potential to lead to valuable discoveries in addition to an increased knowledge about important issues.

The game was played by a group of dual credit Yorkville High School students brought to Todd Library by English 101 instructor Michelle Lillig to research their papers and attend a library instruction led by Faculty Librarian Adam Burke. After the game, a group photo was taken of the students holding their character cards from the game, and the students returned to researching their papers. Hopefully the students enjoyed their experience playing Library Clue, and afterwards their instructor mentioned that she thought it was a really cool idea!

REFLECTION
In conclusion, I found it very rewarding to review other librarians’ creative ideas, and to develop an in-person activity to bring a little bit of fun back to the library, and I would encourage other librarians to give it a try as well! After all, as librarians, part of our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to help students develop the research skills necessary to seek solutions to some of life’s greatest mysteries, and what better way to get them excited about library research than a fun crime-solving game of Library Clue?

To adapt Library Clue to your own library, create your own Library Clue game card and find ways to personalize the locations, story, and characters to fit your specific library, school, or town history. For example, maybe the valuable item found in the library could be a previously undiscovered manuscript by an author from your town, or the map to a long-lost area copper mine, or a treasure map left by the city’s founders. In terms of scalability, the game can work for either up to ten individual players or for teams, depending on the size of the library and the time allotted.

For other sources of inspiration, in addition to library presentations and publications, ideas for fun library activities can be found all around us, including pop culture, video games, books, movies, and television. Any of these, depending on the age level and interest of the target audience, has the potential to be developed into a fun and/or educational library game or activity.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I was inspired to write this article after viewing a presentation by our Library Director, Spencer Brayton, encouraging community college librarians to share their experiences through publication. In addition, I felt encouraged to tap into my creativity by the example and enthusiasm of a pair of Humanities professors whose courses I was embedded in, Dr. Aaron Lawler and Steven Zusman. My coworker Deb Chan did the graphics for the game and provided additional useful feedback. Gratitude as well to Adam Burke and my other library coworkers. The positive feedback of other current and former librarians and teachers was also helpful — thank you to Julie Adamski, Brenda Ammeraal, Joyce Bokun, Beverly Meyer, and Brittany and Susan Neil.

REFERENCES

  1. Arnold, Nicole, Stacy Brinkman, Lily Correa, and Carolyn Downey. "He’s Ready for His Closeup: Peter the Anteater’s Guide to the Library.” College & Research Libraries News 81, no. 3 (March 2020): 125-129. https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/24317/32130.
  2. Jacobson, Terra, Spencer Brayton, and Amy Glass. 2022. “Missing Voices: The Importance of Publishing from the Community College Library Viewpoint.” Webinar from the Network of Illinois Learning Resources in Community Colleges (NILRC). Tuesday, October 18. https://www.nilrc.org/new-events/2022/10/18/professional-development-webinar-missing-voices-the-importance-of-publishing-from-the-community-college-library-viewpoint.
  3. Krawiec, Sydney. “Hogwarts Digital Escape Room.” Peters Township Public Library, McMurray, PA. https://sites.google.com/view/ptpl-virtual-escape-rooms/home?pli=1.
  4. Novak, Nichole. 2022. “Adding a Little Mystery to a University FYE Program: How Librarians Developed a Mystery Game to Teach Fundamental Search Skills to First Years.” Presentation at the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) 10th Annual Online Instruction Showcase. May 20. https://www.carli.illinois.edu/sites/files/files/CARLI%20Showcase%20Adding%20a%20Little%20Mystery%20to%20a%20University%20FYE%20Program%20May20_2022.pdf.
  5. Willey, Paula and Andria L. Amaral. 2022. “The Candy Corn Question: Passive Programming That Pulls People In.” Webinar from Georgia Library Association (GLA) Carterette Series. Wednesday, October 26. https://vimeo.com/764264612/1e352af13e.
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