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So some of you may know that last fall I took my first step into the world of fantasy sports, joining a Librarians fantasy football league on Yahoo Sports. I finished in the middle of the pack – not bad. Having Brett Favre didn’t hurt. I know Susan Smith plays fantasy football….anyone else out there doing this????

This league was assembled via my Info Lit listserv by Paul Waelchli from the University of Dubuque. Paul is a big name in the Library gaming community but is doing some really cool things with using Fantasy Sports to teach information literacy concepts. His presentation Fantasy Sports: The Road to Information Literacy Championships was wonderful. His co-presenter, Sara Holladay is the Fantasy Football Librarian is an avid FF player and did the background on the statistics of FF.

Last summer, The University of Dubuque library had a 30-minute orientation session for their incoming football players and he used the question “Who should be the #3 running back drafted in a fantasy football league?” They talked about researching the issue, where to go for information, difference between the print and online sources of info, how to check multiple sources, credibility, etc. and got extremely positive results.

Since the session was not tied to a real assignment he had wanted to do something that would engage them immediately, make them see the library and librarians in a positive light, and make sure they associated the library with a place that can help you find information. It really looks like he succeeded.

I have been considering what we might be doing with our athletes who are on campus for 2nd session summer school to introduce them to the library and our services. This is getting me thinking about lots of possibilities — if anyone out there is interested in exploring something for our athletes, let me know.