library | Polygamer

Amanda Pegg-Wheat is a children’s librarian and branch manager in Quincy, Massachusetts. In addition to books, movies, video games, and Internet access, Amanda offers her patrons another service: Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. As the DM, she guides young adventurers through the fantasy world of Theros — even when the pandemic keeps them from gathering around the gaming table in person.

In this podcast, Amanda and I chat about what made her want to pursue the children’s librarian track of library science; the value and services that libraries offer in our digital age; what kids can learn from Dungeons & Dragons; whether parents ever object to their children playing D&D; why librarians also need to be community managers; how libraries have adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic; and the joys of reading aloud.

Stream the audio edition of this interview below or from Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Overcast, Pandora, Pocket Casts, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, RadioPublic, or the Internet Archive. Click past the jump for a transcript and links to resources mentioned in this episode.

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The Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota is an archive and research center dedicated to preserving the history of information technology. Instead of physical hardware and software, the CBI preserves the culture and stories of the IT industry, as told by both those who created it and those whom it impacted. Its extensive collection on Social Issues in Computing exemplifies the many challenges that have arisen as the result of the evolution and proliferation of technology, including gaming.

In this episode, I chat with CBI’s current and former archivists, Amanda Wick and Arvid Nelsen. The archive has a growing collection of video game materials, leading me to ask: does the larger technology industry have the same issues of diversity and representation as gaming? Is gaming uniquely a bellwether, or an exemplar, for social issues? Is technology inherently neutral or even positive, as the industry often purports? In what ways are marginalized voices excluded from the authorship of IT’s history? And what does the archive have to say about the classic survival game Oregon Trail, created right in CBI’s home state of Minnesota?

Stream the audio edition of this interview below or from Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Overcast, Pandora, Pocket Casts, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, RadioPublic, or the Internet Archive. Click past the jump for links to resources mentioned in this episode.

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:20:29 — 37.7MB) | Embed

Tag Archives: library

Polygamer #110: Librarian Amanda Pegg-Wheat

Polygamer #66: Charles Babbage Institute on historical diversity & representation