The Arizona Daily Star has an excellent article about how libraries are integrating video games. Better yet, it mentions how the ALA (with funding from the Verizon Foundation) has launched a $1 million research project about how playing video games affects players’ literacy.

One of the librarian members of the study’s national panel is my friend Liz Danforth. Besides being an active librarian, Liz is a fantastic illustrator. If you ever read any of the Middle-earth Roleplaying books from ICE back in the 1990s, you certainly saw her work.

The best quote in the article:

“Games are the medium of choice for the millennial generation, and for libraries to ignore that would be foolish,” Danforth said.

Ed Healy (who sometimes comments around here) just launched Atomic Array, a new podcast about tabletop games. First up, Ed and his partner-in-crime Rone Barton tackle Colonial Gothic, an alternate history RPG from Rogue Games. It’s worth checking out.

Games for Educators is a cool site to show teachers how to integrate tabletop games into the classroom. I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the convergence of education and games lately. Dr. Jim Gee at the University of Wisconsin has a lot to say about how this works with video games, but it’s great to see some low-tech, lower-cost tools like this and GAMA’s Games in Education program too.