Gaming at Your Library

By Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 7/1/2005

It’s hard to imagine librarians whooping it up over a computer game at the front desk. And yet that’s almost what some are hoping will happen among their young patrons, as libraries begin to incorporate video games.

“What seems to have happened is all this literature has come out that gaming is not necessarily a bad thing,” says Jenny Levine, Internet development specialist at the Metropolitan Library System in Illinois, and a board member of the Young Adults Library Service Association (YALSA). “Librarians are also looking at how we can create gaming environments to teach literacy skills.”

Levine first heard of video gaming in libraries from the Ann Arbor District Library in Michigan, which has started to use the popular entertainment to attract young patrons. She hopes to launch a video-game tournament at 16 libraries throughout the Chicago area next spring, with the same objective. Levine is applying for a grant to fund her effort, including the gaming consoles, to keep the event free of charge for all participants.

Using video games as an enticement does makes sense—73 percent of eight- to ten-year-old boys play them for about 90 minutes every day, according to a recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Even YALSA is offering a video-gaming night at their 2006 midwinter conference in San Antonio, TX, with teens on hand to help play them, says Levine.

Gaming, too, is getting bigger play. Recent books, including last year’s Got Game (Harvard) by John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade, are examining the legitimate impact video games are having on business and other areas by teaching risk taking, problem solving, and how to be a team player.

So while the controversial video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City may not appear on a library computer terminal anytime soon, there’s no reason Lara Croft and her archaeological exploits might not.

“We can’t say 'No, don’t play video games,’” says Levine. “We have to make an educated decision. It’s very similar to libraries saying no to e-mail. That wasn’t very effective.”