IF Outreach

Continuing from the panel at PAX East 2010, it would seem appropriate to follow-up that discussion with actionable items.

General Outreach

I think we could identify targets for outreach and tailoring packages for each one. Some of these targets might be:

• Public libraries
• School libraries
• Teachers
• Reading advocacy groups
• Literacy advocacy groups

Public Library IF Outreach Package

I would like to start the process by volunteering to develop a Public Library IF Outreach Package. The package might contain:

• The IF Promotional CD - This is a great start, but I think it has to be looked at again. I originally developed the format six years ago and it's a Windows only CD. I think we need to develop a CD that can install on Windows or Mac. Linux is a nice to have, but I'm not sure how many public libraries are running Linux. I'll do some research to see what the OS breakup is.
• Binder with:
  • Introduction to Interactive Fiction - This would be a letter targeted at librarians that offers details about IF.
  • Advertisment for each game on Promotional CD - These would be a formal one page document describing a game, displaying its cover art, and offering helpful information. It's undertermined how we would develop these pages, but I talked to [Mike Roberts]] and he mentioned the XML API and that we could develop CSS or an XLST that could take some of the IFDB data and auto-generate a one page document for a given game. A volunteer to help see if this is feasible would be great (I'm neither a CSS or an XSLT person).
  • Newsletter about IF - This would be more detail about the history of IF, links to other material, reviews, and possibly even identifying some of us as stewards of the medium. A list of people and their general locations that are willing to visit a school or library for a demonstration might be helpful.