At the American Library Association 2010 Annual Conference this weekend, I attended a panel on gaming in libraries subtitled “A Partnership Perspective”. Focusing primarily on board games, they encouraged librarians to form partnerships with game makers and game sellers to find games that are good for their patrons. It seems like a really good idea – game store owners and game companies get their products into an institution that serves people and potentially creates new customers. The library gets the help of knowledgeable experts in a field the librarians may not be familiar with (a key part of librarianship is connecting with experts and knowing what questions to ask whom for the benefit of their patrons – not unlike journalism, really).
For video games, they suggested asking the local GameStop...
Anyway, the video game talk focused largely on events in the library – patrons (for “patrons” in this particular instance, read “teenage males”) probably have video games in their home, so you have to add value to playing in the library. HD projectors (turning it into a spectacle) and organized tournaments were their primary suggestions.
Attendees were pointed to GT System (a service from the Ann Arbor District Library), a service that provides libraries and other institutions with web-based tools to manage gaming tournaments (including interlibrary leaderboards).
Video games in libraries (and here I’m talking about public libraries and school libraries, mostly) is a touchy subject. They’re violent, they’re expensive, they’re trash – plenty of people have plenty of reasons why they shouldn’t be there.
But in some places, they already are there. The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh has circulating video games (“circulating” is library-speak for “can be taken outside the library”), though usually they’re a part of the teen/young adult collections. The Art, Architecture, & Engineering Library at the University of Michigan hosts he Computer and Video Game Archive (Ann Arbor loves preserving and providing access to video games, it appears), and the librarians at 8Bit Library are scattered at institutions across the country. And National Gaming Day @ your library (the 2009 NGD featured national Smash Brothers and Rock Band tournaments) is scheduled for 11/13/2010 this year.
Do you use your local library? Do they have a video game collection? Are there gaming events there? Would you attend them if there were? If you were a librarian and you were looking for video game information, where would you go?
My wife and I recently visited the Savannah College of Art and Design where she wants to attend grad school. The departments that touch on game design have freshly stocked video game libraries, where students can check out the latest games AND systems to keep abreast of current trends. I almost asked where I could apply right then :-)
I love my library. They're doing a new plan to add new things to all the branches, so I'm hoping they add video games. They already do video game nights for young people.
I think working with game makers is a great idea. Don't know about using GameStop though. :P
I hope more libraries include video games in the future. We already have movies and music! Games are just one more piece of our culture.
The State Library of Victoria (in Melbourne, Australia) hosts regular gaming events, usually for teenagers. They have a section dedicated to games of all kinds called "Experimedia." And occasionally there are gaming industry events held in the Experimedia and corporate sections -- like Freeplay, which I'll be writing about later this year.
I have no idea whether my local library has anything, but two of my university/college libraries have games and game consoles available for students to borrow.