2022-06-17 SPLAT Curiosity Report: Volume 12, Issue 1

Featured Story

Gather: a new way interact online.

I was introduced to yet another way to interact online. Before you groan and roll your eyes, take a look at Gather. I took part in an online conference which was hosted on this Zoom-like platform reminiscent of 8-bit videogames of the past.

Users customize a character and connect the usual peripherals (webcam, speakers, and microphone). Once you join the space you can go into different created rooms and teleport to different environmental spaces, or levels of an office building. Upon entering a room, you can walk around and interact with objects and people. 
Gather uses spatial chat. This means as you walk your character up to a group of individuals within a room, your image pops up for them as will theirs to you. If you walk your avatar away from other users in the same area, the further you walk away the dimmer and quieter the person you were once in proximity gets. “Private chat spaces” are available as well as the open areas. The only way another user can hear your conversation when utilizing one of these spaces is to walk their own avatar into that space to join. This provides a way for users to chat together without concern over letting everyone know what you just had for lunch. 

You can totally customize spaces to be what you need for an event or to replicate your own classroom. You as a room creator  have full control over what will be in the space. Will it feature a podium for lecturing, or a large hall with tables for sitting in groups to collaborate? Don’t forget to add an interactive white board! Maybe this space will be a fun space with go karts and game consoles you can actually play.

Those group learning spaces you made? The instructor can go group to group simply by moving their avatar amongst participants. That lecture space? A screen sharing service is built in and one can broadcast to a whole room of participants without the ear-splitting audio feedback from a less-than-tech-savvy attendee’s computer disrupting the session.  

Desire a space for more socializing? Gather can help you with that too! Team building at a distance can still be done! They even have pre-built escape rooms!

Gather has seized the once very tedious distance meeting and reshaped it to a place people can interact and be engaged. Exposure to this application made me more excited to take part in online activities than I have been in quite a while. 

– Jessica Fleener

Fail Forward

We’ve all been there. You pour your heart into a program, and no one shows up. You try something new, and you fall on your face. Sound familiar? Fail Forward is the place to share your failures, and give you the opportunity to share what you learned from them. Did you promote your program in a different way after no one showed up? Maybe you took a new approach to the new thing you were excited about? Awesome! Share your story via our online form so others can learn, and realize that failure is often part of the process.

Night at the Library

In the spring of 2021, we were finally able to re-launch our Night at the Library event at Molstead. Pre-COVID, it was an extremely popular event, and we were so excited to have it again. While the event, which includes tutoring help, free food, and the chance to win great prizes, was overall a successful night, I realized we had failed in one area. We worked hard to choose prizes that we hoped would appeal to the majority of attendants. We had a Nintendo DS, an iPad, a fancy coffee maker, and a Galaxy Watch.

Most of the winners were ecstatic to win their prizes, but two of our grand prize winners were disappointed. The coffee maker winner didn’t drink coffee, and the Galaxy Watch winner only liked Apple products. While I was initially just surprised that a prize winner would feel the need to complain at all, I realized there was an easy solution to this- and that maybe we should have realized it sooner!

Rather than all winners being drawn from the same bin, students could choose which prize they’d like to win. At that point, they are only eligible to win one prize, but their odds are better for that prize and they’ll actually win something they like.

We launched this experiment in the fall of 2021, and it was extremely successful! Everyone who won a prize was beyond excited, and we didn’t get a single complaint that they weren’t in the running for every prize.

In the end, I was very grateful for this fail forward! While I was initially a bit annoyed people were complaining about a free prize, I realized their feedback helped improve the program! If people accepted their prize with a smile, but didn’t actually like it, we wouldn’t be able to make improvements in the future.

– Brooke Urbaniak

Crush Corner

Is there a library you follow on social media who is always doing new and exciting things? How about a blog you follow that inspires you? What about a new idea, book, or resource that you want to share? Library Crush Corner is a place for those working in Idaho libraries to share what inspires them, and who or what they’re crushing on… in a professional sense. Share your story via our online form so we can publish it in a future issue!

Rediscovered Books

As a librarian I have strong feelings about the banning of books. The quote “A truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone.” from librarian Jo Godwin is something I believe in. I want to say my crush is to all the libraries that help people read banned/challenged books. My Crush is not in libraries but it is to the Rediscovered Bookstore in Nampa. This last week in May on twitter they said In just one week, they donated over 1,250 books to pass on to students, staff, and residents in the Nampa School District. So that people have access to materials that are being banned. So to everyone thank you for sharing books, stories and knowledge.

– Eric Hovey

SPLAT explores the ever-evolving library world and supports library folks as they adapt to meet the needs of their communities. Library folk throughout the state of Idaho volunteer to serve on the Special Projects Library Action Team (SPLAT). Learn more about SPLAT at splat.lili.org

SPLAT is brought to you by the Idaho Commission for Libraries and was made possible, in part, by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (LS-246156-OLS-20). The views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.