Pokémon Go
Submitted by ewilliams on Tue, 07/12/2016 - 14:48
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Hi everyone! If you have some questions about Pokémon Go (like, "what is it?"), here are the basics: public areas like libraries may be marked as special places in the newly-released augmented reality game Pokémon Go. The game is a free app played on smartphones. You may have kids (and adults!) coming to you and wandering around the building with devices, trying to catch or battle Pokémon.
Here are some articles you might find helpful:
- Everything Librarians Need to Know About Pokémon Go
- Reddit: Libraries as Pokémon Gyms
- Libraries as Makerspaces: I Just Won Our Gym!
- How Pokemon Go Can Lure More Customers to Your Local Business
We're gathering information about which libraries are Pokestops and Gyms and will update this post soon with that information. Please comment if you have fun stories, displays, or ideas to share!
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I was shown this display. I thought it was super cool and helps with Market Penetration. http://m.imgur.com/7qZBkFr
I also have seen a display where they are asking members to tell them what Pokémon they caught while visiting.
City of OKC Poketiquette Guide: https://www.facebook.com/cityofokc/?fref=ts
I found an article about Pokémon Go helping small businesses on my lunch break - http://www.inc.com/walter-chen/pok-mon-go-is-driving-insane-amounts-of-s...
It has some good advice on how to "lure" players in as well as things such as "Get social: Take in-game screenshots and post them on the social-media platforms where you're active. Use hashtags like #pokemongo and #pokemon to get the message out to your potential new customers." It suggests offering rewards for certain activities in the game - perhaps we could erase a player's fine or offer special bookmarks. Just a few more ideas to keep us current with "the kids" (and, ahem, forty-something-year-olds who downloaded the game to see what all the fuss was about and somehow got sucked in...)
This event might be a good spot for a pop-up library. As of now, 2.2K people are "Going" and another 6K are "Interested".
https://www.facebook.com/events/248683368849629/
I just put a picture of our Catch Them All display on the Bricktown GO event discussion. Hopefully this will raise awareness of the libraries' participation.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153559679831058&set=gm.2551954...
Dana at Choctaw found these great signs, shared by another library system: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6ePw4ShtPWGTElSanR6WlRGRzA&usp=...
Pokestops: AL, BI, BE, CT, ED, HR, JN, NW, RE, VI, WA
Gyms: BI, LU, MC (2), NW, SO (2), WR
OKC Guide to Pokémon Go
https://bigwing.com/blog/okc-guide-pokemon-go/
Pokémon Go is based on an earlier Niantic game called Ingress. Ingress used portals as check-in points, and those portals formed the base frame used to place the PoGo portals and gyms. The old Ingress Intel map is available that shows all of the Ingress portals. It will not show if an Ingress portal is a pokestop or a gym, but it will show where the concentrations of these areas will be. The map is interactive (the closer you scroll in, the more portals you will see), and it does require free registration (or sign in with a Google account) with the Ingress game to view.
https://www.ingress.com/intel
Marna Martin pointed me over here from the forum, where I put up this post:
I wasn't sure exactly where to put this, but last night while reading my personal Twitter feed I came across an idea a librarian in another city/system had to stay on top of the PokémonGo craze. It is at https://twitter.com/PokemonGoNews/status/755844767875948544 - basically they created pins, members can earn so many pins per week, and certain tasks (such as "tell Librarian Gayle about your favorite book" or "Catch a Pokémon in the library, either by drawing one or taking a picture in PokémonGo" earned you those pins. I thought it was quite clever and something our children's or young adult librarians might want to do. Some adult librarians may be interested as well, though the tasks would have to change - but from what I can tell, a lot of the PokemonGo demographic are in their 20s and 30s.
(Photo in forum post)
This would be fun to do throughout the Metropolitan Library System! If there is a significant difference in some of the Pokemon which are caught in different locations, people might want to explore different branches than they usually go to.
"Help your fellow #PokemonGo players in #Shawnee: the library has a board for customers to write down the Pokemon you've found at the library!"
https://www.facebook.com/pioneerlibrarysystem/photos/a.405335581500.1837...
I put the same info plus a bit more in the salute to Rena Gibson:
Here's an idea from Pioneer Library System. I think if a "Pokémon caught here" board was in each branch and displayed on social media, it might encourage players to visit libraries other than the ones they go to. It's my understanding that you *HAVE* to move around to different areas - not just geographic points on a map, but types of places - to get different Pokémon. For instance, Bethany's duck pond would have "water type" Pokémon. I visited Edmond yesterday and saw my first Psyduck. The only place I've seen a Tauros so far has been Downtown.
(Note that I say saw. I didn't get to catch them!)
I just read about an all-ages Pokemon Go party hosted by The Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County (OH) - they were really creative and apparently it was a really enjoyable success!
http://www.teenlibrariantoolbox.com/2016/08/this-is-what-happened-when-w...