Thing 20

Are Games Hurting Libraries?
This article presented a good topic. Mr. Gibson stated that “libraries are helping to contribute to illiteracy in America”. Reading this and working in the library makes me think that maybe there is some truth behind his words. How many times have we seen children and adults come to the desk with a huge pile of DVDs and no books? In fact, this reminds of something interesting that occurred on the first floor during my shift yesterday: a woman approached the desk with a pile of DVDs that seemed about to fall off her arms any second. Almost immediately her two sons followed her while asking her to get some books. The mother turned towards them and her answer was an emphatic “no”. I understand that is easier to watch a movie than to read a book, but if your children want to read I don’t see why you can’t let them. Anyway, the beginning of this article reminded me of that and I wanted to share it with you.
I also read the answer to that article and I agree with the author in that times change, and so it is better for libraries to change with them. We live in an Information Age, with screens, computers, and electronics everywhere. This is the way children are growing up now, learning from a screen instead of books. Therefore it’s normal that they feel more comfortable participating on activities related to computers in any way, like the games that are the focus of this article.
For me, the difference between video games and table top games is that the second ones allow participants to interact with real people, face to face, and this helps build good interpersonal skills.
If we try to do it here I’m sure that we would get reactions from both sides, those in favor and those against it, but that would be just at first, until people got used to it.
It does make sense that in order to get teens to use the library, the library should have something that interests them. If games are the solution, why don’t we try it?