Among the many informative articles being written about Pokémon Go, there are two worth highlighting. “What is really behind the Pokémon Go craze” provides this pithy description of the game as “the first real success story of the use of augmented reality technology, which blends the digital and real world together. The combined effect is part bird-watching, part geocaching, part trophy-hunting, with a heavy dose of mid-1990s nostalgia.”^[1] The article is a worthwhile read if you’re looking for a succinct description of this phenomenon to share with your staff, board, or patrons; however, this second article brings some more practical ideas for libraries.^[2] Replace the words “small business” in the article with “libraries.” What can you do to get players to use your services while they’re playing the game?

You “gotta catch ’em all”—patrons, that is. Doing so goes beyond marketing and relies more on the behavior of library staff and the environment of your building. You have agroup of potential patrons just at the edge of your grasp. Are you welcoming these people to see what’s happening in the building through signs or other advertisement while they are in your parking lot catching Pokémon? Is all your library staff, from the front line to the administration, able to (at least briefly) talk intelligently about Pokémon Go? Making sure all your staff understand the basic premise of the game will help your overall rapport with this frequently absent-from-the-library demographic. It can be as simple as encouraging staff to walk out of their way while coming into the building for their shift to ask someone hunting Pokémon in the parking lot, “What have you caught so far here?” This provides the same warm feelings as asking a perplexed person in your book stacks, “Can I help you find something?” Your staff show that they care about all their patrons.

Whether you buy a lure and walk through your parking lot handing out fliers on your current services, or you simply track the most successful Gyms in your community and congratulate them on social media, you can show the twenty- to forty-year-olds that you care about what they are doing. And if you care about the game they are putting so much time and effort into, you obviously care about other things they are interested in, too. They may just come back to you when they need something else.

Just a few libraries with  Pokémon GO events:

• Warwick Library: Pokémon Go Gym Meet
• Worth-Pinkham Memorial Library: Pokémon Go: Walk & Train Club
• Bronx Library Center: BLC PokeStop: Pokemon Lure Module
• Midland County Public Library: Pokemon Go Bar Crawl and Pokemon Hunt

Reference

[1] Hayley Tsukayama and Ben Guarino, “What is really behind the Pokémon Go craze,” Washington Post, July 12, 2016.

[2] Walter Chen, “Pokemon Go Is Driving Insane Amounts of Sales at Small Local Businesses. Here’s How It Works,” Inc.com, July 11, 2016.

The post Pokémon Go: Strike While the Iron Is Hot! first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

So, why consider crowdsourcing the library?

1. Because crowdsourcing is a 21st century skill and we want 21st century libraries.
2. Because crowdsourcing can create massive digital content resulting in greater data discoverability and value-added content (through tagging and annotations).
3. Because crowdsourcing creates engaged user groups and we want to engage with our communities.
4. Because crowdsourcing helps libraries achieve goals it would never have the resources to complete on its own.
5. Because crowdsourcing requires a level of trust and loyalty to the organization inherent in libraries and their communities.

While librarians are familiar with the broad concept of crowdsourcing we might not readily understand the potential implications for public libraries of the future. And in the end, we just might develop an engaged, involved user group formerly known to us as “patrons” who are ready to take part in the type of meaningful participation crowdsourcing allows.

Crowdsourcing is not new, in fact, we first heard about it over ten years ago. As defined by Merriam-Webster, it is the “practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers.”

Innovative librarians with crowdsourcing skills must develop the framework, platform, or strategies that allow crowdsourcing to flourish in public libraries. I’ve outlined some high profile digitization projects that you’re probably already familiar with, but have you ever considered crowdsourcing library services such as collection development or reference?

Take for example, collection development. Isn’t patron-driven acquisition a form of crowdsourcing collection development? [See Chicago Public Library PDA grant-funded crowdsourcing collection development —http://www.ala.org/alcts/resources/z687/cplpda1].

And, how about applying crowdsourcing to answering reference questions, which has been done outside of the library field [See Crowdsourcing Reference Help: Using Technology to Help Users Help Each Other by Ilana Stonebraker and Tao Zhang http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/conferences/confsandpreconfs/2015/Stonebraker_Zhang.pdf]

Crowdsourcing has been used successfully in many high profile library projects such as New York Public Library’s Labs, in which they have opened projects to researchers to crowdsource digital map and menu collections. [see How the NY Public Library Crowdsources Digital Innovation at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2488220,00.asp].

Along the same lines, the Smithsonian has created a Transcription Center where they have placed an open call for digital volunteers (even coining their own Twitter hashtag #volunpeers). They are currently recruiting for help to transcribe the William D. Stone General Store Ledger Book, 1865-1867 [https://transcription.si.edu/project/7669] where one will “gain a first-hand knowledge about the needs of people and businesses returning to their lives after the Civil War.”

I would love to hear your thoughts about how you think this could work in your library. What would your library look like if you crowdsourced it?

For more information:

Holley, Rose. “Crowdsourcing: How and Why Should Libraries Do it?” D-Lib Magazine,

March/April 2010, Volume 16, National Library of Australia.

[http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march10/holley/03holley.html]. Accessed 8/13/2015.

Howe, Jeff. The Rise of Crowdsourcing. Wired, Issue 14.06, June 2006.

[http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html] Accessed 8/13/2015

Matthews, Steve. “Crowdsourcing – A New 21st Century Library Skill.” 21st Century Library Blog, June 29, 2011. http://21stcenturylibrary.com/2011/06/29/crowdsourcing-%E2%80%93-a-new-21st-century-library-skill/ Accessed 8/13/15.

The post Five Reasons to Crowdsource the Library first appeared on Public Libraries Online.