The amazing library race: Developing the students MIL skills through games: the case of the Philippines and Kazakhstan

Abstract

In this time of disinformation and misinformation, the libraries remain to be a reliable source of truthful and factual information. As they fervently support the agenda of lifelong learning, libraries recognize that there are various approaches that redefine the process of student learning. Admittedly, librarians need to be more creative in motivating the post-millennial students to help them fully develop their Media and Information Literacy (MIL) skills.

This paper explores how games are adopted and utilized by academic libraries as an interactive approach to entice students to learn the essential MIL competencies. It presents how games could be a viable tool not only to deliver information literacy instruction in a collaborative learning environment but to also effectively engage and attract students to use the library resources and services. While the use of games is not novel, the way it is delivered and re-purposed to meet the MIL competencies is vital in today’s young generation of learners. In addition, this presentation highlights how two academic libraries in two separate countries were able to embed MIL skills through a race challenge. Furthermore, this paper discusses the practical steps undertaken in the preparation of the game as well as the observations made during and after the activity was conducted. With this, other libraries may gain insights and best practices on how to leverage this method to further champion MIL in their own communities.