Video Games in Libraries: An Introduction

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So I was driving by my local library the other day when something caught my eye. In huge letters on their side was “YES! WE HAVE VIDEO GAMES!” I’d lived in the area for over 9 months and this was the first time I was actually contemplating about stopping there. It took the mention of video games to get my attention. But why would a library have video games? Aren’t they only suppose to have crusty old librarians and dusty shelves of ancient manuscripts. Not today’s libraries.

Why am I writing this article? Well… because I’m a librarian, or will be, and a Gamer, a nerd and a geek, a gerd if you will. And I think our readers can handle some none rage inciting writing every once and a while.

Anyway, libraries today aren’t just for books anymore. More and more they’re turning towards electronic forms of data and even entertainment. They have to compete with bookstores and video rental places now. While older women are in lines to get the newest smut novel, it’s the younger people that are missing from the library. Somewhere deep within the bowels of the Earth, all the librarians got together to try to figure out this problem… the answer was right in front of them the whole time, video games. It’s the fastest growing entertainment sector and if you’ve ever been to a midnight launch… you’d know who the main market was. Now all they had to figure out how to do was to work that into the library. The two models that these enlightened librarians came up with: circulating and tournaments. Yes, tournaments, but that’s for a later article.

This series of articles is going to go over how librarians use video games to attract the younger crowds and how us gamers can benefit from it. But right now, I want to give a plug to a place that I feel every gamer should visit. I work for the University of Michigan library system. We have a video game archive. Yes, a VIDEO GAME archive that is open to the public. (We also have Video Game classes which is awesome in itself). As of the beginning of Feb. we’ve got over 1000 games… including the many old classics. Hopefully Grundy and I will get a visit in and be able to report back soon. If you’d like more information about UM’s Video Game Archive, check out this blog by David Carter, who is the head of the VGA or this page that tells you what we need. If you have donations, I’m sure they would be glad to take them.

VGnL Series

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