Exploring the role of games and gamification in academic libraries from the perspective of LIS educators

Abstract

In the library environment, games and gamification can be used to improve various services and activities. Although many successful gamification projects have already been implemented, some librarians still lack knowledge and are sceptical about the use of games in libraries. This is also the case in Slovenia, where library gamification projects are rarely formalised and publicised. Moreover, not much is known about whether Slovenian librarians obtain any knowledge about these approaches during their formal education. For this purpose, interviews were conducted with ten main compulsory course holders at the Department of Library and Information Science and Book Studies at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. The main objective of the study, which was carried out in January 2021, was to investigate the attitudes of Slovenian Library and Information Science (LIS) educators towards the inclusion of games and gamification in their courses and in academic library services. The results showed that they rarely cover games and gamification-related topics in their lectures, nor do they use them for knowledge transfer. They especially see the potential to design games and gamification activities that would promote departmental library, its services and activities, motivate students for independent research and support the educational process.