The Library as Playground: How Games and Play are Reshaping Public Culture - Paperback

by Dale Leorke (Author), Danielle Wyatt (Author)

This book examines the expanding impact of games and play on public libraries as manifested in their spaces, programs, design, and support for gamemaking communities. It reveals how the rise of play in public libraries is connected to a broader digital culture.

Author Biography

Dale Leorke is an independent researcher. His research focuses on the intersection of games, play and public space. His research interests include mobile and location-based games, participatory planning and civic engagement, and the transformation of public libraries in the digital era. His books include Location-based Gaming: Play in Public Space (2018), Public Libraries in the Smart City (2018), Openness in Practice: Understanding Attitudes to Open Government Data (2021), and the edited collection Games and Play in the Creative, Smart and Ecological City (2020).

Danielle Wyatt is a cultural researcher at the School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne. She writes and researches about the public life of culture, particularly the intersection between cultural spaces, networked technologies, arts practice and cultural policy. Recent work has been published in the book, Public Libraries in the Smart City (co-authored with Dale Leorke), in the anthology, Communicative Cities and Urban Space edited by Scott McQuire and Sun Wei, and in the International Journal of Cultural Policy. Other research has been published in the journals New Media and Society, City, Culture and Society, and Field: A Journal of Socially-Engaged Art Criticism.