In “Embracing the Long Game” Greenwalt describes the Oak Park Public Library’s Idea Box, a participatory space where the community’s contributions build upon each other. The library’s customer service manager Monica Harris had cited inspiration from the way communities emerge and develop online, referring to the way that people “might want to talk about the same things you want to talk about.” However, especially in the anecdote about adding checkmarks to people’s favorite books, I think the Idea Box managed to go beyond that, as the participants not only responded to the given prompt but also gave it a new life. The resulting creative process defied expectations, making it more akin to a public play area than simple “conversation.”
Play is something that everyone should engage with, regardless of their age. As the architect of the British skate park F51 puts it, “Play doesn’t just stop when you get older. If anything, you should make sure you can incorporate play even more” (Dowdy, 2022). Examples of play in this module include the DOKK1 Urban Mediaspace and the LEGO Art Machines at the Exploratorium. In the latter example, workshop facilitator Amos Blanton stresses the importance that such activities be “open-ended.” I especially enjoy when play occurs socially and in unprecedented ways, especially among audiences who are typically thought to have “aged out” of play, so the fact that the Idea Box participants were able to take the activity’s guidelines and make something new out of it was rather inspiring to me. (Side note: The playful riff on existing structures reminded me of Grand Theft Hamlet, a documentary about two actors who managed to put on a production of Hamlet in Grand Theft Auto Online with other players during 2020, as well as Goncharov, a 1973 Scorsese mafia film that has a large fanbase on Tumblr and… doesn’t actually exist, as it was collectively fabricated in 2022 based on a photograph.)
Based on the list of recent topics and the photos on its webpage, it seems like the Idea Box has focused less on public participation and more on displays and exhibits instead, eventually going on hiatus earlier this year, to “clarify vision and establish formal policies and clear procedures.” This is understandable, as play was likely not the original point of the Idea Box. Though themed displays exhibiting local artists and highlighting important holidays are still valuable in community spaces like the OPPL, I do find it unfortunate that the participation and open-endedness has become rather limited in the Idea Box. Then again, I also understand that it is more difficult to measure and monitor play than it is to measure and monitor something with more structure. Still, I hope that the OPPL (and other libraries) are able to provide community members with other/more opportunities to engage with each other in open-ended play.
References
Dowdy, C. (2022, February 7). What the Nordics can teach us about having fun. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220207-what-the-nordics-can-teach-us-about-having-fun
ELIG.org. (2016, February 4). Creative learning, making and coding at DOKK1 in Aarhus, Denmark [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/G-lCxenhWSk
Greenwalt, R. T. (2013, February 21). Embracing the long game. Public Libraries Online. https://publiclibrariesonline.org/2013/02/embracing
LEGO Foundation. (2016, July 5). What do we mean by learning through play? [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/173458519
Oak Park Public Library. (n.d.). Idea Box. Retrieved August 04, 2026 from https://www.oppl.org/news-events/idea-box
(I hesitate to use the word “consume” here because the purpose of engaging with stories should not be simply to intake a certain amount, but to meaningfully interact with them instead.) I feel like this shift can be seen in how we no longer listen to the radio because we now have other technology, but we get our news through other formats and we still listen to podcasts through our smartphones. Though fewer people are reading physical books, more formats of storytelling have cropped up, and the fact that libraries now have whole DVD collections, video game collections, and even partnerships with streaming platforms such as Kanopy reflects this. Access and choice are important, as Klinker points out, and it is for this reason that we must remember to think beyond just the printed word.