Future possibilities of Pokemon Go: Book Hunter

Pokemon Go, Going Nowhere
Previously, I had written an earlier version of this post as a comment on Robin DeRosa’s blog in response to her animated GIF about Pokemon Go not being suitable for use in education. I am not disagreeing with DeRosa’s premise, but would like to suggest a better version to support education, specifically Open Education Resources (OERs).

It seemed unfortunate that finding Pokemon is the main goal of the game with the side benefits of more exercise or potential social encounters. I find the game itself a bit ironic since the data sets for the game came from a previous game, (Ingress), where users found spots, catalogued them (adding the spots to the game play). So what is the added value besides animated Pokemon characters?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is also a strong argument that even the benefits (exercise and socializing) are overshadowed by the accidents involving Pokemon Go, illegal trespassing and break-ins. (I am sure there is a troll out there somewhere, telling everyone there is the one and only Pikachu Pokemon on the White House lawn, right now!). The final quip is that players are striving to collect digital goods that they can’t even own. Seems like quite the exercise in futility.

Digital Dilemmas & Bereft Books
With regards to OERs, picture yourself as a student who wants to purchase a used textbook or any book that is under current copyright law and therefore the book cannot be opened or created into an OER textbook/resource because there is no open domain content to seed the OER creation with. Therefore, your only choice is to buy a used textbook via Amazon or the local university bookstore. Perhaps less expensive than a new textbook, but still expensive for many students (Drawing from DeRosa’s YouTube lecture at Keene State here).

There is also the issue of connecting sellers and buyers, or more specifically potential sellers with buyers. Amazon has done a lot for decreasing the barriers to finding the book you want, but there are still barriers for sellers. Do you really want to go through all the steps to create an Amazon account, post a book for sale, just to make a few dollars on one book? Then there is the actual physical shipping of the book once the payment has been completed. Definitely buyers are more motivated to search for a book they want or need, but I would wager that there are many a book moldering, unread, and unappreciated on personal book shelves, tucked away from the Internet, stranded on readerless islands, but surrounded by the binary ocean of the Internet. Literally you have the digital ghosts of users riding the radio waves and fiber optic of the Net, blasting through personal library walls, but ironically not being able to find or access the books they are teleporting through.

Rationale
In summary we have buyers searching for books via the Internet but not being able to discover the books they want because the sellers or books are, for whatever reason not listed online. A totally solvable problem because:

1. In the digital worlds we inhabit, there is an average of 3 degrees of separation via social networking  (or at least less than the traditional, snail-mail based 6 degrees). Probably one of your friends knows someone, who knows someone who has a copy of Diamond Age or Rainbows End and is willing to part with it for a reasonable reward.

2. The first-sale doctrine will apply to these used books transactions, thereby protecting users from any issues with copyright from publishers, as long as they deal with, physical books. Further avoids the issue of subscribing to eBooks and not legally owning them, plus all the numerous issues (see Table 1. for a summary) with eBook file formats, devices, and not being able to share your eBooks.

Table 1: Common restrictions for individual users and libraries with eBooks as stated by Walters (2014). Adapted by Dubhgan. 

Individual	Examples
viewing	Limits number of total page views or frequency of page views over a single session or contract.
printing	Limits number of pages in a print job, in a single session, month, or length of contract.
downloading & transferring	eBooks are hosted on the distributor’s server with only sections loaded to the user’s device or pages are viewed through a proprietary web interface.
Digital Rights Management	DRM software enables publishers to limit use however they choose, with the burden of proof placed on the user. Illegal to circumvent DRM.
Libraries	Examples
users	Limits number of users viewing eBook or type of user (student vs. patron).
circulations	Limits number of circulations with additional payments required over set limit.
inter-library loans	Limits or prohibits use of eBooks for use in the inter-library loan system.
loading e-readers	e-readers are pre-loaded with eBooks for patron use, but all individual restrictions still apply with patron borrowing all the eBooks via the e-reader, limiting availability to other patrons.
file formats	Proprietary formats are not compatible with different e-readers that patrons own.
control of content	Publishers and distributors control the eBook content, not the library. Content may be removed without any prior notice with an Internet connection being required for eBooks to be viewable.
integration	eBooks can’t be cataloged with print books. Therefore more staff and resources are needed for an additional catalog and lending system.

3. The 3rd law of the 5 laws of library science, states, “Every book its reader”. Therefore, we need lots of librarian assistants (Book Hunters) to help books find potential readers and get the books off the shelves and into the hands of readers. Additionally the boundaries that libraries place on the lending or borrowing of books would not be an issue because everyone would be an viable patron through the Book Hunter app.

Introducing Book Hunter
The new Book Hunter app works like this. You post a request for a book or books by a specific author in a public place with a point reward associated with the book. In other words, via the app there would be a digital book request tagged on a digital map that is linked to the corresponding physical location where the request was made. Other Book Hunters can find your request via viewing the digital Book Hunter world by their physical smart phones or tablets. Once a Book Hunter discovers a request they then try to fill the request through their friends, social networks, or via meeting other Book Hunters.

Once the Book Hunter finds the book, the Book Hunter informs the initial person who made the request and leaves the book at the physical place where the request was originally posted. A simple plastic bag will suffice for rainy weather etc. Kind of like BookCrossing but more targeted and with rewards.

Digital bar codes or QR codes would be used to verify the transaction, i.e., when the initial requester picks up the physical book left by the Book Hunter, then they scan the digital QR code on the bag or book. This verifies that the book was picked up by the correct person and releases the game points to the Book Hunter and to the other potential players or suppliers who supplied the copy of the book. Points can be used to pay for other book requests or possibly transferred into real currency. You could start the game with every new user getting 100 points of digital currency to spend. Requesters decided the amount to reward the supplier and the Book Hunter. Book Hunters could also just get a commission of the total reward instead of a set number of points too.I think this would work well in urban areas and especially college campuses where their is a lot of turn over for books. Also motivates people to ‘clean’ there book shelves since most people can not store lots of books, but will continue to acquire new books as their reading tastes change.The future?
A distributed library with all patrons storing small subsections of a collective library collection, rent free.Book Hunter drones pick-up and deliver the found books, either from the suppliers or to the original requesters.