There’s a battle going down at the of the Baltimore County Public Library system. It’s a one-point game in the fourth quarter with only seconds left on the game clock. Huddled around a big screen in a small room, 10 or so teenagers cheer on their joystick-wielding buddies. The ball is snapped, the kick is up … no good. It’s wide right, and the crowd goes wild, trash talk flying.
Every Wednesday, battles like this one boil over at Sollers Point, where the weekly Xbox program for teens starts at 3:30 p.m. and ends at 5.
“If they’re being really good and the next shift can take over, they can stay until 5:30,” says Sollers Point librarian Liz Slack. Today, the kids get their extra half-hour.
Michael Sauers is currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
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There’s a battle going down at the of the Baltimore County Public Library system. It’s a one-point game in the fourth quarter with only seconds left on the game clock. Huddled around a big screen in a small room, 10 or so teenagers cheer on their joystick-wielding buddies. The ball is snapped, the kick is up … no good. It’s wide right, and the crowd goes wild, trash talk flying.
