So far so good on the Minecraft server!  We've got about 15 teens involved, and they're happily building away. So far the tasks have been:

1) Find the City
2) Build a house
3) build a business  (just for show, we're not messing around with an economy at this point)

Here's the city:

I have been impressed with the adorable houses some of the teens have built!  They're mostly boys, but we've got at least two ladies in there.  The building up in the air is the insane asylum, and in the distance you can see a couple of towers of the fort.  I'm disappointed to see a little destruction--someone must have spawned some creepers, which isn't very sporting.

Now I need to come up with more tasks and challenges to keep them occupied.  I think perhaps I'll have them build famous landmarks next?

I purchased three Minecraft gift cards at our local Game Stop, and this summer I'll be giving them away.  The first contest will be your standard "guess how many whatevers are in this jar", and I think I'm going to try to track down green gummy bears in bulk and call them creepers.  Cute, eh?  Not sure what I'll do for the other contests, but I'm sure something will come to me!

We've been in creative mode all of May, I think in June I may switch to survival.  Perhaps survival mode AND a building challenge, to make it extra difficult? Hmm.

Minecraft 2 --The Plugins Episode

You have a functioning server!  Ain't life grand?  But what about all the fiddly details that will make your server YOURS?  You want PLUGINS, my friend!

As my teens start logging in, I'm sure my needs will change, but I started with a few basics.  Start here to see what's available, http://plugins.bukkit.org/  These are what I'm playing around with now:

Anticheat: http://dev.bukkit.org/server-mods/anticheat/
Essentials: http://dev.bukkit.org/server-mods/essentials/
WorldEdit: http://dev.bukkit.org/server-mods/worldedit/
GroupManager: http://wiki.ess3.net/wiki/Group_Manager
ChestRestock: http://dev.bukkit.org/server-mods/chestrestock/


To add a plugin, you just download what you want, unzip it if necessary, and put the files into your plugins folder.  Personally, I put the download into my plugin folder and THEN unzip it, but my computer programmer boyfriend had a heart attack when I did that---though he couldn't give me a good reason why NOT to, so nyah nyah.

Here's my plugin folder after adding Essentials and Anticheat

Easy!  Try logging in now and then to make sure nothing has gone wonky.  There's nothing worse than having something go wonky and not knowing WHICH of the many things you just did has caused the problem!

Another important thing:  Make sure you have given yourself permission to use the things you're installing.  In the main folder, you'll see a file called "ops".  When you open it, it shows a blank notepad document.  Just type your name, and the names of any other admins in there.  Just make a list, no need for punctuation.  That should make everything work.  To check, get the server running and sign in.  Then try a command.  Wait, you don't know any?  Well then, try this:

type:

/time set night

Did you go from something like this:

 to something like this:

If so, you're golden.

You can read about what those plugins all do at their sites, but here's a rundown:

AntiCheat: keeps teens from being able to use cheats in your server.  Seems like a good idea.


Essentials: gives you lots of handy tools.  I'm still learning to use them, the loooong list of commands is here:http://wiki.ess3.net/wiki/Command_Reference/Perm 


WorldEdit:  Does what it says on the box!  You can get really creative with this, but I've mostly used it to fiddle with the landscape a little to make room for my town. You can easily flatten land, dig big holes, drain ponds, etc.  It takes some time to figure out, and it is possible to make a very wonky world, so PRACTICE this one!


GroupManager: This was the easiest permissions thing I have found.  It allows you to decide who can do what. In my world right now there are two groups: admins (me and my intern) and the default group that all the teens fall into.  GroupManager had things pretty nicely set up already-if the teens decide they need more permissions I think I'll be able to add them, but it gave them reasonable stuff.  They can build and fight, but don't have access to TNT, and only I can change the game mode.


ChestRestock:  This allows you to put items in a chest, and the chest restocks itself through magic.  I like the idea of being able to hide things for the teens to find--this way everyone who finds it gets the prize, and I don't have to worry about restocking it myself. 

That's all I'm using, currently!  I'd love to know if you discover/have heard of interesting plugins.  I saw one that generates a TARDIS, and one that gives you the arena from The Hunger Games!  Lots of cool stuff available!

MINECRAAAAAFT

Minecraft Minecraft Minecraft.  It's all the rage these days...by which I mean for the past three years or so.  It's starting to become a THING for libraries though, so of course I'M ON IT.

There are a bunch of blog posts and articles out there about how fun and valuable it is to host your own minecraft server, but it turns out there aren't a lot of articles about how to set up the dang thing.  I am by no means an expert, but here's how things shook out for me.

Step 1) buy a Minecraft account and figure out the basics of the game.  This is going to mean putting in some hard work playing video games, but I know you'll get through it!  Having an understanding of the game is pretty important for the rest of it.  There are plenty of tutorials and things available on the minecraft wiki, as well as recipes for crafting. The most important thing to know up front:  you move with the letters WASD and space bar (a teen walking by had to explain it to me my first time, that's the level of experience i'm starting with).

Step 2) talk to your IT department.  If you're going to want to open your server to the outside world, they're going to need to be involved because firewalls and ports and other IT mumbo jumbo.  Right now my server is hosted on a computer in my boyfriend's basement, but it will migrate to one of our servers once ::insert IT mumbo jumbo:: is moved/upgraded/something something.

Step 3) set up your server!  You'll need a computer that isn't doing much of anything else, or for your IT department to do some wizardry and then give you access to that wizardry.

-Pick your server.  I chose to go with the Bukkit server because it seemed like the most user-friendly and has a lot of great plugins to make my life easier.  MAKE SURE YOU DOWNLOAD THE MOST RECENT VERSION.  At the time of this posting, that is version 1.5.1-RO2  (http://forums.bukkit.org/threads/craftbukkit-1-5-1-r0-2-is-now-available.141097/)

There are lots of tutorials available, but I found that they assumed a certain amount of previous knowledge, even the ones that are aimed at total noobs.  Here's one of the most valuable things I learned:

YOU OPEN .YML FILES IN NOTEPAD.  YOU'RE WELCOME.

There it is!  Rename it craftbukkit (it'll automatically add the .jar, in my experience. When I named it "craftbukkit.jar" it turned out to actually name it "craftbukkit.jar.jar" which took a while to figure out.), and then make a new folder (name it something fancy like "server" or "bukkit" or "minecraft" or "francis" and put it inside! DO THAT BEFORE YOU OPEN IT! LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES!

Double click it! It should generate a bunch of files:

In your fancy folder, right click and open a new text document. Paste this in it:

java -Xms1024M -Xmx1024M -jar craftbukkit.jar -o true
PAUSE

Save it as       run.bat


Double click our fancy new "run" thingydo.THINGS WILL START TO HAPPEN:

Mine is telling me there might already be a server running on that port.  I am able to login to it though, so I'm going to assume that's something to do with the fact that I can't actually run this on my computer (IT stuff blah blah computers ports blah blah)  for now though, I am able to log in and I am able to install sweet plugins.  It's pretty easy to move all of your hard work to a place where it WILL be functional to the outside world, so if you're working on it while IT figures out their end, it's all good.

 Even though I've done this a few times now,  I did it from scratch as I was creating this tutorial, and goodness did I mess it up a lot.  Hopefully if you walk through these steps you won't need as many stiff drinks as I did after my first couple of tries.

Next post: PLUGINS!

 (here's where I got my info when setting it up.  The link does NOT go to the most recent version, use my link above.  This article had all the info, but I found it hard to follow--it took me many tries to get it right!  http://wiki.bukkit.org/Setting_up_a_server)

It's business as usual these days at the library.  I try to give myself a month here or there without too much to worry about, and April is one of them as I gear up for summer reading.

Winter Reading is finally over, and was a pretty decent success!  I had about 50 teens turn in about 350 entries.  Since I re-vamped the whole thing this year, I can't really compare to last year's stats, but I was definitely excited to see a lot of unfamiliar names on many of the entries--which means it's not just the kids I see all the time participating.  My favorite bingo square was the one where I had them email me a joke--it meant I got random emails with terrible jokes in them!  Highly recommended.

I had another Trivia night and it went well.  I pretty much get the exact same teens each time, which is fine so long as they remain into it!  I wish we could get a few more though, because it is SERIOUSLY fun.

There was one pretty big flop this week-- due to lack of interest by the youth librarians, I put together our first Battle of the Books.  I kept it pretty low key, since we really had no idea what sort of interest there would be.  It turns out not much!  If we (and by "we" I mean "not me, but someone") do it next year there are plenty of things that we could do to ensure more participation.  Because I'm the Teen Librarian with plenty of my own work to do, I didn't do those things.  We'll see how next year goes, if it goes at all.

Right now I'm focused on my upcoming trip to C2E2 and getting my Donna Noble costume together in time!   I'm also using all of my free time at work to start assembling grab bags for summer reading prizes.  Last year I went through about 1500, and I hope I need many more this year!  I've got about 200 made, so if I keep going I should be in good shape when the SRP starts.

Teen Teenbrarian

There's a thing going around the twitters--librarians are posting photos of themselves as teens.  I happen to have a FEW gems on FB, so I thought I might as well post them all here!

This must be my Freshman year, because by the time we did photos again I would have switched to xylophone for marching band.  I graduated at 17, so that means in this picture I'm about 13.

Ah, the black lace over red dress style for Homecoming.  Great when paired with black nylons and a choker for that perfect 90s look!

I'm actually not sure whether the previous picture was older or newer than this one, which was Homecoming 97.  I suspect the red/black dress was Homecoming 98.  My mother not only let me out of the house in this, but she borrowed it once.

I'm so glad I grew up to be the stylish and sophisticated lady you see here!

I have not forgotten you, blog! 

It's a very busy time for me at the library,  and that combined with a mysterious illness of mystery left me pretty unable to function for a while.  I'm feeling better and deep into Summer Reading planning--perhaps a little TOO deep, as I keep forgetting about programs that are going on right now!   I nearly didn't leave in time to pick up the pizza for today's TAC meeting!

Despite the Summer Reading plans being made, Winter Reading is still going!  I'd estimate that right now I have about 150 entries here at the main library, I have no idea how it's going at the branches yet.  They have until March 30th to turn in their slips, so I'm sure there will be many more.  My heavy cosplayers are vying for the $50 gift card so they can purchase costume supplies, but the Doctor Who and Manga themed prizes are popular as well.  At THIS building the Nerdfighter prize isn't doing as well, however I suspect it's more popular with my teens at the branches.  I hold all of my book clubs at the branches, so I've put time and energy into making Nerdfighters of those teens!

The really big news is that I have finally hired an intern!  The search for just the right person was long--I've been without since September.  Since I do purchasing and programming for three buildings, I have very much missed the extra help with all of the housekeeping things that need to get done.  I was searching for someone who had a genuine interest in working with teens, who was as different as possible from me (so that they would appeal to the teens that don't give a hoot about me), and who I thought could uphold the great casual atmosphere I've built here.  I think Mike will be a great fit--on his first day he taught me how to domesticate animals in Minecraft, so he's already been useful!

I've been learning the ins and outs of Minecraft, as I'm hoping to start a guild here this summer.  The teens have been a great help, as have the hours and hours and hours I have now spent playing that addictive game.  I think it will be awesome to play with the teens, but I'm still figuring out the best way to make it work for us.  The IT department is involved now, as I need a static IP address to run our server from. on. from. Right now my thoughts are that our server will be available during the after school hours for any teens that I put on the White List, and once a month or so we'll have specific challenges that they can compete in for prizes.  They won't have to even come to the library, they will be able to log on from home!  Virtual programs! The future is NOW!

Trivia!

It's Trivia night!  Last summer I had my first pub-style trivia night at the library and it was super fun--more fun than even the teens who showed up had anticipated.  This newsletter cycle I scheduled 4 different trivia nights--one at each building for teens as well as one for Young Adults (18-29).

Tonight I'll be at our North Branch, and I'm pretty excited about who has signed up.  Many of the teens who normally hang out at Main and South are signed up!  That's definitely a sign of a good program.  Another good sign is when you see teens you've never seen before.  Hopefully that happens, too!  It's snowing pretty hard here this morning though, I hope that it stops and the roads clear up so that everyone can make it.

I assume none of my teens know about this blog, so I'm going to post the questions I wrote here.  There is also a round where I show a famous painting and ask either who painted it or what it's called, and one where I show pictures of famous people and ask the teens to identify them.  Last time I used Kevin Bacon, Jenna Marbles, and our library director for that round.  They didn't know Kevin Bacon or the director, but they knew Jenna Marbles!  This time I chose Hilary Clinton, Psy, and Walt Disney.

Here are the questions! How many can you get right?

Presidents:

1)Which president was the first to be sworn in on live TV? He was the 33^rd president.

2) Which president was the first to have a pet cat in the white house?

3)Who was the FIRST  first lady had both a husband and a son serve as president?

Famous African Americans:

1) This famous man developed 325 different products from peanuts.

2)This woman developed beauty products for African American women, eventually employing as many as 5000.

3) This man was the first African American supreme court justice:

Animal Nicknames:

1)What marine mammal is known as the “Sea Cow”

2)What kind of whale is known as the “Killer Whale”?

3) What is one of the mountain lion's multiple other names?

Vintage TV:

1)Name the three grown men who share a house in the show “Full House”

2)It was recently announced that this 90s show will soon be getting a re-boot revolving around the teenaged daughter of two of the main characters of the original show. What was the original show?

3)Name the show that centers around the patriarch of the Huxtable family.

Pop Culture:

1)How many members are in the band One Direction?

2)What is the first name of the butler in the anime/manga Black Butler?

3) What song is currently #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 list?

Mythology:

1)According to the recently celebrated Chinese New year, we have just entered the year of the what?

2)Name the Egyptian sun god

3) Who is the Norse god of Thunder?

Books:

1)Everyone knows J.K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books.  What does the J stand for?

2) Everyone knows J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings books.  What does the J stand for?

3) Everyone knows Lemony Snicket wrote The Series of Unfortunate Events.  But that’s just a pen name.  What is the author’s REAL name?

Quotes:

1) Who said, "It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt"

2)What French Queen allegedly said “Let them eat cake”

3) “Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads” comes from what movie?