Library Lockdown: An Escape Room by Kids for the Community

Authors

Jennifer L. Thoegersen, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Rasmus Thoegersen

ORCID IDs

Jennifer L. Thoegersen

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

11-23-2016

Citation

Thoegersen, J. & Thoegersen, R. (2016). “Library Lockdown: An escape room by kids for the community.” In the library with the lead pipe.

Comments

This article was originally published by In the Library with the Lead Pipe under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Abstract

Hoping to bring the unexpected to Nebraska City, the Morton-James Public Library applied for an ALA Association for Library Service to Children Curiosity Creates grant to undertake an ambitious project: build an escape room. In a library storage room. With children. The hope was by trying something completely different, we could increase interest in the library throughout the community and build a sense of ownership in the participants, while encouraging creativity and having a lot of fun. Library Lockdown was a four-month program that brought several dozen kids together—age 8 to 13—to build a fully-functioning escape room. Their creation, the Lab of Dr. Morton McBrains, is now open for business.