The 2008 CIL conference (Computers in Libraries) held April 7th-9th in Arlington, VA has 5 presentations devoted to gaming and virtual worlds. Here are the speakers and the information on their talks as listed in the conference program:

Chad Boeninger - Learning from Video Games
Many librarians and educators recognize the importance of video games and learning, but do not have the time or the resources to build game-based library training tools. Boeninger uses actual scenarios from popular games to demonstrate how video games attract players, retain their attention, and make them learn. The presentation offers suggestions about how librarians Many
librarians and educators recognize the importance of video games and learning, but do not have the time or the resources to build game-based library training tools. Boeninger uses actual scenarios from popular games to demonstrate how video games attract players, retain their attention, and make them learn. The presentation offers suggestions about how librarians can incorporate many gaming learning principles into existing library services, resources, and instruction and also discusses the future of incorporating gaming in libraries.

Marsha Spiegelman and Richard Glass - Gaming & Learning
Social networking and gaming define the millennial student. This session highlights an innovative collaboration between a reference/instruction librarian and mathematics/computer science instructor that utilized course blogs and gaming scenarios to incorporate information literacy as an integral and assessable component of math/computer science courses. Games provided the
interest and incentive students needed to improve their information literacy skills, and blogs extended interaction and enhanced student/librarian relationships. Speakers discuss their partnership on information literacy game design and adaptation, research assignments, and share their lessons learned so others can try this approach.

Martin House and Mark Engelbrecht - Gaming for Adults
Speakers report on research into how gaming attracts adults to the public library and how it may increase their future usage of libraries. They look at trends such as the information gap and social/technological access gap and discuss how their data shows that gamers are avid users of reference services. Come and get a new perspective on adults and libraries.

Barbara Galick and Kitty Pope - Convincing Administrators of the Validity of
Virtual Worlds
Virtual worlds are rapidly increasing in use by all ages and many of them are not game-oriented. How do you convince your administrator that your library needs to participate and why it is important to allow you staff time to work in a virtual world library? Speakers and library administrators share tips and strategies to help you win over your administrator.

Craig Anderson, Krista Godfrey, Troy Swanson, and Larry Sloma - Integrating Second Life: Courses and Collections

Many business and educational institutions have been opening up shop in cyberspace with the SL online virtual reality platform. Anderson and Godfrey explain how academic libraries are using SL to reach elusive patrons and offer services such as virtual reference. Swanson and Sloma talk about a collaborative project that brought together student content, cultural events, and virtual worlds. A class of honors students worked with the library to create the core content and supporting research for a virtual exhibit about Malcolm X. Geographic material and supporting timelines was presented in a website that utilized Google Maps and a three dimensional exhibit in SL. Speakers discuss how the virtual environment impacted the presentation of content and services and changed interactions between content and user, and provide tips, tricks, and strategies for instituting a virtual branch of your own academic library and enhancing digital collections.