Finding the Future: My Night Spent at the New York Public Library

Posted on May 26, 2011 by Brian Fiore-Silfvast — Leave a Comment

Last weekend I was locked inside the New York Public Library (NYPL) for the entire night. I was not alone in that massive, elaborately decorated building. There were 499 other people from around the nation participating in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: We were invited to “Find the Future” to help kick off the NYPL centennial celebrations. All 500 participants were asked to participate in a complex Alternate Reality Game (ARG).

So we were all locked inside the library from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. on a nightlong scavenger hunt and novel writing experiment. The experience, the creativity, the game, the idea and the final product were incredible, truly unique feats (not to mention memories that I will carry with me for the rest of my life)!

The night began with gaming mastermind and futurist Jane McGonigal explaining the game to the players as we gathered in the beautiful wooden NYPL reading room. Our mission was to explore the massive, historical library on a never-before-done scavenger hunt, where we would break into teams, seek out artifacts and write a 600-page book by the end of the night, describing the stories of each artifact. We had a website and a smartphone app to help us out as we scoured the building, looking for 100 famous artifacts and the stories they told. Along with each artifact was a writing prompt inspiring the players to reflect on ideas of their own that fit into the significance of the history they were observing. 

The game consisted of two elements: 1) We ran around the library in small teams consisting of  professionals, academics, gamers, creatives, writers, journalists, readers and library lovers seeking out artifacts and their coinciding QR codes that unlocked each story and writing or creative prompt; and 2) together or individually, we generated unique content, stories, images and designs. It was our aim as a collective group to cover all 100 topics and create enough content by the time the sun came up.

Using the smartphone app as our main tool, my team roamed around all corners of the library and scanned QR codes that were associated with displays that matched artifact clues. After scanning each QR code, the app would “power up.” In essence, the more QR codes a team had, the more power a team had. The power was largely irrelevant, although it signified the unlocking of creative prompts.  

Each artifact was “infused” with special powers that you, in turn, absorbed when you scanned its QR code. Each power represented different elements of knowledge. Next, back at the reading room, we looked at the artifacts we had just scanned on the game’s website and began writing as a team on the prompts that each one provided. An added incentive was the fact that certain stories had to be done before certain deadlines. From there, it was simply a game of “find the prompt that you feel like writing about.” Some prompts involved writing, while others involved photography, drawing or visual representations. The book had to be finished by 6 a.m.

As an additional bonus to the eve, we all were given the rare privilege of being taken on guided tours of the NYPL stacks (where the opening scene from Ghostbusters was staged). And in case you were wondering, the place is definitely haunted. There are seven stories of books below New York and Bryant Park. The NYPL stacks contain 80 miles worth of books. If your mind just exploded, I don’t blame you — mine did too. In the stacks, each of us would find a hidden postcard (well, 500 of them), which had a personalized “message from the future” handwritten by Jane and her team. The message was about how the scenarios each of us had written about in our application would (hopefully) play out. It was a thoughtful addition to the overall game. To make this task a difficult and enjoyable one, each of us had to take our postcard and then deliver it to the person it was addressed to. With everyone scattered throughout the library all night, this was a challenge and, ultimately, a satisfying experience. The idea behind this task was that each of us would make connections with others who weren’t already working directly on our teams and for us to make connections to people that, as fate would have it, we were connected to. I enjoyed this task and thought it very exciting when I found Charlie B., the man whose card I had and when I was found by Lanie, the woman who had my card.

On Saturday morning, I finally got home at 7:15 and set my alarm for noon. I didn’t wake up from my slumber until 3 p.m., and I’m still overwhelmed by my experience at the NYPL. What I’m left with is this: “Finding the Future” at NYPL with 499 amazing people — representing different minds, different skill sets, different world views, different professional disciplines and different histories, but with a common interest in promoting the public library system and a commitment to contributing to our world — was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and one that I feel honored to have participated in. While I felt the game was an interesting ARG application and representative of different approaches to business and learning that we will likely find in the future — and I thought the artifacts were awesome and interesting — it’s not every day that you see the stuffed animals that inspired Winnie the Pooh, the Gutenberg Bible or a handwritten score by John Coltrane. However, the thing that I thought was most amazing about the entire experience was having the opportunity to be in a room full of 500 inspired people who for an entire evening were collaborating, brainstorming and producing completely unique and original ideas. I have absolutely never experienced an environment of such condensed creativity. There was a constant buzz in the air that was composed of 500 different thoughts and opinions. It was absolutely impossible to not feel the creative electricity of the room and feel inspired to contribute to the novel. The final outcome was that more than 18,000 stories were written that evening, and we will have a 600-page, hand-bound book published that will forever be held in the NYPL collection. If you ever visit NYPL on Fifth Avenue, ask for the book and see what happened on May 20-21, 2011, the night before the end of the world. The evening was a first-class success and an irreplaceable experience. We collectively “Found the Future.” It turns out that the future could be a pretty awesome place.