Gamifying Reading in the Library of the Future

Image courtesy of Flickr user Phil Monger, used under a Creative Commons Attribution License

Gamification - the process of turning unpleasant or frustrating tasks into a game of sorts - is more popular than ever. People use gamifying applications on their phones to track their diet and exercise, companies have used gamification to create employee-of-the-month type systems where everyone can win, and even some schools have started gamifying student progress in order to encourage them to participate in more activities and work towards better grades. With so many gamified activities, it's not too hard to imagine the introduction of such a system into your local library.

Most gamification examples work in the same way: the user is presented with badges or achievements that they can earn through performance in a relevant task. Usually, these achievements are only useful for bragging rights, but in some scenarios, they can be accompanied by rewards. In the pursuit of these badges, a person creates for themselves a clearly defined goal that they can work towards, and experiences a sense of accomplishment when they succeed.

I believe that the implementation of gamification into the library would be one of the most effective ways of using Web 2.0 to attract and retain patrons. Through the use of plugins such as BadgeOS [1], a librarian can easily add badges to the library website, and check a user's earned badges and progress. With the knowledge of the books that patrons check out, badges could include, "Words read", "[Genre] books read", and "x books returned on-time in a row". Badges could also be used to encourage the consumption of less popular books, which could otherwise remain unread. Librarians could reward recipients of these badges with more lenient due dates, or the permission to take more books out at a time. Working towards a defined goal, library patrons will be encouraged to continue using the library over online e-books or audiobooks.

In conclusion, modern libraries should follow the proven trend of gamifying their services. Gamifying the library will create concrete goals in the minds of readers, reward loyal library patrons, and help librarians find every book it's reader. It might not always be clear what the future brings, but gamification is sure to find it's way into every aspect of life, including the library.

References:
[1]: http://badgeos.org/badgestack/