Blood on the Stacks II—Revenge of Anubis
by  Jeremy Donald

A daring crime in the library? Resident Mentors and library staff among the suspects? Students comb the library and its website for clues to solve the case? Sounds like New Student Orientation, Coates Library-style! In August the Coates Library welcomed Trinity First-Year students with an alternate reality game called Blood on the Stacks. For the second consecutive year, new students arrived in their Resident Mentor groups to solve a library mystery, win points by answering further questions, and compete for a grand prize.

Blood on the Stacks began in the spring of 2006, with a charge from Library Director Diane Graves to invent an orientation to follow in the footsteps of  the hugely successful Harry Potter-themed orientations created by science librarian Barbara MacAlpine. Librarians Jeremy Donald, Clint Chamberlain and Jason Hardin created a mixed-media, digital/analog experience that treated the library as both a cyberspace and a bricks-and-mortar campus hotspot. Communication professor Aaron Delwiche supplied the idea of making the library orientation an ‘alternate reality game,’ where a fictional online narrative combines with real-world people, places, and events to create a game that blurs the boundary between the real and the imagined, the online environment and physical reality. The game involved a website, a My Space page, several film clips, an online tutorial, and a hunt for clues in the library during orientation week.

While input from an ad hoc student committee informed the design of the first incarnation of the game, the 2007 version of Blood on the Stacks benefited immensely from feedback provided by several focus groups consisting of new and returning RA’s and RM’s. Ben Newhouse and Katie Storey served on the planning committee, and made many important contributions as well. Ben and Katie also worked with the librarians to integrate the library NSO fully into the Orientation Week activities.

The 2007 Blood on the Stacks Library New Student Orientation represented a new high for involvement and enthusiasm from both new students and Residence Life staff.  39 Resident Mentor groups participated, bringing a total of over 500 first-year students through the library. Out of 39 RM groups, 31 decided to stay and work on the bonus questions—ten library-specific questions of increasingly difficulty, designed to test First Years on what they learned during the orientation. An 80% participation rate in completing the optional questions was a strong indication that this year’s new students responded positively to the orientation, and got off a good start as future library geeks.

This year, two Resident Mentor groups took home the Grand Prize, a $150 study break during mid-terms. Caroline Balogh and Kevin Eaton both led their groups to not only guess the identity of the culprit (the Library’s own Jerry Hernandez) but to answer the most bonus questions to take home the two grand prizes. They are representative of the leadership and positive role modeling demonstrated by all the RM’s who brought their best efforts to bear on helping First Year students discover and become familiar with the library’s resources, services, and staff.

Return to the Fall 2007 Library Newsletter