Character Defining: a library journaling game about creating characters from the unexpected connections between books

Overview and aims

This session explores my implementation of solo journalling game mechanics (itch.io, 2025) into creative writing library sessions for students studying scriptwriting, video game design and animation. In these sessions books were chosen using gaming tools (card and dice selection, and player trades) and then used as informational prompts to describe key characters within a narrative structure. Books were chosen to reflect diverse backgrounds, geographies, cultures, professions and events; the aim being to encourage an empathetic creative response, where the players learned about, and created characters, whose lives and concerns were potentially very different to their own.

The session’s aims include:

• To provide students with characters they could use in their creative practice and who were created using information found in library resources; as well as providing a creative tool for future projects.

• To hold a discussion with the students at the end of the session; sharing their characters, how they were imaginatively realised and the books used to research them. Themes of difference, empathy and the exploration of worlds and lives different to one’s own were encouraged. As well as thinking about citational justice principles (Craven, 2021) in creative as well as academic practice.

• To explore a curated library collection via the use of creative game-based provocations in a way that retains the key information literacy principles of source assessment, critical reflection and discovery of new information. A bridging strategy that allows a collection of material to simultaneously be used as inspiration and afford reflective dialogue; a happy medium often hard to reach with students who prioritise their creative practice.

Research themes

• Unloved books: I identified many unborrowed inspirational books in our library, outside of reading lists, that could provide impetus for creative practice. Following Marshall’s action research principles (Marshall, 2016), rather than deaccessioning them, I investigated how they might be used.

• Games and serendipity: A former LILAC presentation (Mckinnery, 2024), started me thinking as to how these books might be linked together by students to tell a story. The use of games became a key aspect of this (especially journalling), to channel the randomness of serendipity and curate unexpected encounters. I looked at games developed in the library context (Walsh, 2018) as well as creative uses of weeded books (Borchgrevink, 2024). In conclusion I reframed books as journalling prompts, operating as TIEs (transformative information encounters) (Lowe, 2023) within my session/game.

• Decolonisation and citational justice: That these gaming principles might be used to increase the range and inclusion of inspirational sources in narrative-based creative practice (Crilly and Everitt, 2022). That lost voices from library collections might be rescued (Seppälä, Sarantou and Miettinen, 2021), rather than being weeded. As a principle I argued that creative gaming tools might work in parallel to critical tools when thinking about how creative practice might embody decolonisation and citational justice aims.

References
Borchgrevink, H. (2024) 'Finding objects, connecting dots: Exploring serendipity as interruptive artistic strategy for audience interaction in public spaces', Nordic Journal of Art & Research, 13(2) Available at: https://doi.org/10.7577/ar.5797.

Craven, C. (2021) 'Teaching Antiracist Citational Politics as a Project of Transformation: Lessons from the Cite Black Women Movement for White Feminist Anthropologists', Feminist Anthropology, 2(1), pp. 120–129 Available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/fea2.12036.

Crilly, J. and Everitt, R. (2022) Narrative expansions: interpreting decolonisation in academic libraries London: Facet Publishing.

itch.io (2025) Top games tagged journaling. Available at: https://itch.io/games/tag-journaling (Accessed: Oct 31, 2025).

Lowe, C.V. (2023) 'Promoting transformative encounters in libraries and archives', Journal of Documentation, 79(2), pp. 431–441 Available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-03-2022-0053.

Marshall, J. (2016) First person action research: Living life as inquiry, in Sage Publications (ed.) London, England: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Mckinnery, P. (2024) Serendipitous searching: taking art students on a visual research journey. 25 March 2024.

Seppälä, T., Sarantou, M. and Miettinen, S. (2021) Arts-based methods for decolonising participatory research Milton: Taylor & Francis Group.

Walsh, A. (2018) The librarians' book on teaching through games and play Tallinn, Harju Maakond: Innovative Libraries.

Further details of this project are documented on my blog: https://daspgcert.myblog.arts.ac.uk/

A blogged account of the paper's delivery by Sheila Webb is recorded here: https://information-literacy.blogspot.com/2026/03/character-defining-library-journaling.html

• https://daspgcert.myblog.arts.ac.uk/
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