LIS 9763

After reading all of the materials for this week and collaborating on a group project, I am now excited by the idea of having games in a library.  I have to admit that at first, I was a little skeptical.  In my mind, there was a distinct divide between ‘entertaining games’ and ‘educational games’, and I believed that only the latter really had a place within a library.  But it is now clear that both of these types of games have their own advantages and that librarians should take the time to explore the possibilities for their users.
 
I think that the main challenge in accepting games as valuable library resources is that it requires a much more open understanding of the benefits that entertaining, educational, AND 'edutaining' video games have for our users.  Even something as simple as a Wii tournament can improve our users' social skills and it can increase their appreciation for the library.
 
This latter point is something that is important for librarians to take into consideration.  Young male users are notoriously difficult to reach and to retain as patrons.  I believe that having resources like games - which they already know and love - can draw them into the library and help them to gain valuable exposure to the other items that we have to offer.  Maybe this is a form of bribery or trickery, or even a 'bait and switch' method, but I think that it's definitely worth exploring.  And maybe it's not any these things at all.  Maybe it's just a way of helping young users to create positive associations to the library as a place and to see that it IS relevant to them.
 
After pondering the issue of why some libraries find it so difficult to accept games as worth-while resources, I began to wonder if this is due to our general weariness of jumping feet first into popular culture.  In many intro courses, we're warned about the dangers of seeing the library as a place of high culture and ourselves as gatekeepers of these products.  However, as much as we try to be completely open to pop culture, I do think that there is still a little devil on our shoulders that is urging us to see comic books, games, etc., as 'lesser' resources that have the potential to corrupt our users and our libraries.  But aren't libraries for our communities and shouldn't they aim to meet our users' needs, regardless of what those may be?  I think that this is a question that all librarians, including myself, should be asking themselves.