Gaming

Tag: Gaming

Upcoming Library Events

The Mudd Library will be hosting a variety of fun and interesting events through the end of the term. From genealogy to video games- there’s something for everyone!

Professor Erica Scheinberg will talk about the 30th anniversary of Michael Jackson’s, Thriller.

October 18th: Tenth Library Mid-Term Reading Period Smash Bros. Tournament and Opening Gaming

  • Join us for our tenth Smash Bros. tournament and open gaming event! In addition to Smash Bros., we’ll also have open gaming Halo or Mario Kart as well as board games. In celebration of this milestone, we’ll have cake and extra prizes. Open gaming and warm-ups start at 6:30 pm, tournament begins at 7 pm.

October 25th: Things Worth Knowing: Haunted Lawrence

  • Learn about eerie happenings around campus. With Archivist Erin Dix.

November 1st: Things Worth Knowing: I See Dead People: Exploring Geneaology

  • Presented by Music Librarian Antoinette Powell, the library’s foremost forebear fanatic.

November 8th: Things Worth Knowing: Thriller at 30

  • November marks the anniversary of Michael Jackson’s super-smash album. Learn more about the music and MJ from special guest, Professor Erica Scheinberg.

All Things Worth Knowing events begin at 4:30 pm and take place on the first floor of the library. For more information on past topics, take a look at the guide.

We hope to see you at one, or all, of these events!

Be Well This Summer

Whether you are looking for a cookbook, exercise video, or just need to get out of the heat, the Mudd Library is your place for summer wellness. Take a look at a few items from the library collection that will help you on your path.

Healthy Eating:

The Food Matters Cookbook Contains 500 recipes to improve your health, and your impact on the environment.

American Dietetic Association Complete Food and Nutrition Guide This guide covers a variety of topics relating to healthy living- from facts about vitamins and minerals, to nutrition for athletes.

Indoor Exercise:

Zumba Fitness Created by Alberto Perèz, fitness trainer and choreographer.  Have fun and get in shape with Latin rhythms and upbeat dance moves. Set includes DVD and toning sticks.

More Yoga for the Rest of Us Instructional DVD of lower-impact yoga for stretching, balance, strength, and relaxation.

Deepak  Chopra’s Leela: Mind, Body, Spirit, Play This Nintendo Wii video game was designed with the guidance of Deepak Chopra to teach meditation and relaxation exercises.

Just Dance 3 Dance along with a selection of more than forty popular songs. For the Nintendo Wii.

Positive Psychology:

How Full is Your Bucket? Learn how to make the most of your interpersonal interactions at work and at home.

If, like many of us at the Mudd, you believe that wellness comes from relaxing with a good book- take a look at some staff favorites from our recent coffeehouse.

Some Great New Resources

Like elves in a workshop, your friends at the Mudd Library have been busily preparing all kinds of great new stuff during winter break.  We’d like to take a moment to highlight a few.

JSTOR Arts & Sciences VIII: This set has been added to our existing JSTOR electronic database collection.  By adding this collection, we have increased our JSTOR access to core humanities journals, as well as new titles in philosophy, classical studies, and music.  In addition to modern journals, it also contains “a group of rare 19th and early 20th century American Art periodicals digitized as part of “a special project undertaken with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick Collection, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art.”

Interested in watching some classic musicals?  We now have DVDs of some of the best, including (but not limited to) Fiddler on the RoofBye Bye Birdieand Annie Get Your GunSpeaking of classics, we have also just added the entire set of the original Japanese Godzilla movies.

We’ve recently acquired some very interesting books from a wide variety of genres. Read Tonight No Poetry Will Serve, written by one of the “essential voices of our time,” Adrienne Rich.   Our collection of dance resources has been greatly expanded with titles such as, Envisioning Dance on Film and Video. Learn about the archaeological field of prehistoric warfare with Warfare in Prehistoric Britain. Need something to reinforce your fears of a zombie apocalypse?  Check out the most recent volumes of the terrifying and amazing, The Walking Dead.

We’ve also added some new video games, including what has been referred to as, “the Wii game we’ve been waiting for,” The Legend of Zelda : Skyward Sword.   Three Xbox 360 games have also been purchased, and will soon be ready for checkout.

Of course, this is just a small sampling of some of our new acquisitions.  After you’ve enjoyed your winter holiday festivities, stop by the library and take a look!

Historical Media

We’d like to share a couple of awesome ways to share, view, and experience historical media.

Fourth of July Celebration photo compared with Google Street View

SepiaTown is a user-driven database that matches historical photographs with locations on Google Maps.  Users upload photographs, add the location the photograph was taken, the date it was taken, and any additional information about the picture.  The “then/now” feature provides a side-by-side comparison of the historical photo to the Google Maps Street View.  Users can do a keyword search, or look at images associated with featured locations. Check out the SepiaTown Blog to learn more about features and collections.

The ARIS game platform uses historical images and videos to create mobile games that allow the player to relive past events in the locations that they took place.  An example is the game Dow Day, which displays videos and images from Dow Day in 1967 when a player visits certain locations around Madison.

Dow Day: A game designed using the ARIS game platform.

ARIS was created to allow educators to create mobile games that integrate learning and augmented reality (the concept of using technology to add additional information to an existing environment). Educators/developers have created more than historical games using ARIS.  Some examples include, campus tours, museum exhibits, foreign language instruction,  bird and plant species identification, and one from the Library of Congress on using primary sources.  Games created by ARIS are currently only available on the App Store.

National Gaming Day 2010

National Gaming Day is an initiative of the American Library Association, created with the purpose of educating the public about the many opportunities provided by libraries- including gaming.  Libraries around the world are invited to sign up to host gaming events on Saturday, November 13, 2010.  As of November 1st, more than 1,800 libraries have signed up to participate in this event.  For more information about National Gaming Day, see the official American Library Association Press Release.

We at the Mudd Library encourage gaming for fun, as a way to socialize, and even as a topic of study.  We will, of course, be participating in National Gaming Day.  We will have board games including Scrabble, Twister, and Wits & Wagers, as well as Mario Kart Wii available to play on Saturday from 1:00 to 4:00 pm.  So, bring a friend and take a gaming break @ the Mudd.