I will wait a second for you to get the picture of King Julian out of your head but feel free to hum the song as background music for the post.
Multi-user virtual environments (MUVE) came up as a school topic. Explain these to me, I asked the 17 year old. I don’t know what they are. I have never used one. What does it do? Why would one do this?
He sighed. “You are playing one right now.” I looked around my kitchen to see how this had gotten into my home. I denied such action. “The hidden picture game you play. Your rankings are up there with other people around the world. It is multi-user.” I nodded, ok maybe I was cutting edge; maybe I did know more than I thought. “When you were addicted to Trivia Crack, again virtual multi-user.” Hardly addicted, I countered, but he made his point.
So, I said prodding this information source more, how would libraries use MUVE?
He covered lots of the ground I had thought of… Contests for age groups or topics. New book releases that are promoted by some multi-user games. And also covered some of the things I struggled with…finding good multi-user games, that were ad free and appropriate. I also struggled with being anyone you want to be on the Internet: how does sign up work? How do you make sure in your addition contest, it is really 5-6 year olds that are playing?
I think libaries can MUVE it, but a careful game plan, lots of prior research and networking with those who have done it successfully is imperative.
kkdonk 