What Games Have to Offer: Information Behavior and Meaning-Making in Virtual Play Spaces

This article examines the information seeking behavior and meaningmaking in virtual play spaces by employing the example of one such space. The researcher examines the means by which game players get the information needed to succeed in a game through the lens of everyday life information seeking, and how they make meanings in the play space through the lens of the dramaturgical approach. While this research emphasized a particular online game environment, the information seeking and meaning-making applies to many other virtual play spaces, both multiplayer and single player. If information seeking and meaning-making are taking place in virtual play spaces in the ways they appear to be, gaming in the library could be an important way to promote effective information seeking. The possibility of a new way of seeking information and meaning-making suggests several lines of investigation regarding the provision of information in other arenas that remain to be explored. Introduction Despite the recent trend toward using video games in the library, particularly to draw in young adults, there is still some resistance on the part of some libraries and librarians to include video gaming as one of the programs or services of the library. There seems to be a belief that perhaps video games are too trivial a pursuit to bring into the library. Educators and academics share this belief to some extent in their resistance to the use of video games in the educational setting and to the serious study of games and gaming. While this attitude appears to be changing over time, it is certainly still of some concern when considering the reasons for including or excluding gaming from the library. What Games Have to Offer: Information Behavior and Meaning-Making in Virtual Play Spaces