A group of Victorian public library folks and others is presenting a panel promoting public libraries at Melbourne’s international games convention, PAX Australia, at 10:30am on Friday 10 October. This convention draws over 40,000 folks of all ages (but with a strong contingent of young adults) from Australia and around the APAC region.

As part of this presentation we are conducting a survey on what playful collections, facilities, and programs are available in public libraries around the country.

Public library staff are invited to fill out this survey (don’t worry if it takes a beat to download).

Apart from name/job title and work email address (for validating survey responses if needed), we only collect public information about what you offer your patrons. We will promote this to panel attendees, and also share the compiled information with any library bodies that find it useful.

If you are interested in requesting access to the results of the survey, or contacting us, you can use the form for either purpose without having to fill out the rest of the survey.

Thanks in advance for your time!

[Posted on behalf of Philip Minchin, City of Melbourne Libraries]

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PAX panel – Friday 10 October 10:30-11:30am

Playgrounds for the brain: the playful arts in the public library:

Join a panel of library folks who love games, and games folks who love libraries, to explore how these two highly compatible, but historically disparate, worlds are growing together. Learn about one library service's dedicated Games Discovery Centre, a fortnightly games club that invites game devs to playtest their works in progress, how a game studio is partnering with local councils (and libraries) to host purposeful play that builds resilience in a changing climate, and the growing number of libraries where you can borrow tabletop and electronic games to play at home. Then join the panellists to dream up even more exciting ways to make play accessible to everyone. This is a panel for anyone who wants more play in their libraries and/or more libraries in their play!

Current participants are:

  • Aramiha Harwood, ara (he/him), [Research Fellow at the Future Play Lab, RMIT & Games Publisher, Mana Press & narrm ngarrgu Across the Board gaming club organiser], @aramiha
  • Declan McKinstray (he/him), [Community Engagement Librarian - Creative Technologies], no socials
  • Elissa McMillan (she/her), [City Resilience Lead, City of Melbourne] @cityofmelbourne
  • Lucas Li (he/him), [Games Therapy Network], no socials
  • Nathan Beattie (he/him), [Arkenforge Co-founder and Tech Wizard] @Arkenforge
  • Philip Minchin (he/him), [Creative Director, APILI; Library Branch Team Leader, City of Melbourne], no socials
  • Shani Downing (she/her), [Community Program Officer, Libraries], no socials