Keith (one of our acquisitions crew) posted a link on our library blog today to an amazing, spontaneous, accidentally educational, treasure hunt game that some person (I’m still trying to work out if she’s actually a librarian or just an interested student) created in her local academic library.

Coreopsis Major left clues in the form of call numbers at her library, at first on tables, then leading to books at various locations around the library, to take the finder of these clues on a treasure hunt around the library. Eventually, there’s treasure at the end.

(I borrowed these pictures from Coreopsis Major’s page on SFZero, go check out her project!)

Coreopsis was playing SFZero, a kind of Alternate Reality Game. In this game, players create “Characters” who perform all kinds of “tasks” out in the real world in order to obtain completion “scores” when they report back their progress on the website. In many cases, the tasks, submitted by other players to the game, are simple, yet ambiguous, designed to allow players to exercise huge amounts of creativity.

Coreopsis’ task - that spurred her to create her game - was simply “Leave Clues“. Other tasks are as simple and quirky as “Make it Work” (which players have generally interpreted to mean “fix something”) and “Irregular Animal Documentation” (”document an animal you rarely see”).

Tasks, and Characters (based on what tasks they perform most), are divided into “institutional bureaucracies” which embody particular themes of thought-provoking play. “The EquivalenZ project seeks to fulfill the originating fantasies of Virtual Reality”, “The city suffers from a Humanitarian Crisis and appeals for unilateral humanitarian aid, and basic human rights”, ” The Biome Group concerns itself with an exploration of the living structure of the City”, and so on.

I think SFZero as a project is especially cool because it is encouraging players to think about the world around them in new ways, adding playfulness to otherwise ordinary spaces and activities. In the process of re-thinking their everyday lives, SFZero players also impact others around them. Coreopsis Major’s simple treasure hunt creates a sense of mystery, adventure and exploration in the otherwise ordinary library activity of looking up and locating call numbers. I wonder what other ideas we could come up with to create excitement about common library activities, in ways that teach students basic skills at the same time.Coreopsis Major’s simple treasure hunt creates a sense of mystery, adventure and exploration in the otherwise ordinary library activity of locating call numbers.