A little while ago I posted here on the boom in video gaming in libraries, and how, against my better judgment, it irked me. As a librarian who loved books as a teenager – of course there were no game machines back then – I was a little disturbed by the fact that the only way that YA librarians seemed to draw many teens into the library was letting them play Guitar Hero or Dance Dance Revolution there. “Are we selling out?” I wondered. “Is the only way we can get teens to go anywhere near print to pretend that we’re ignoring print?”
Were I younger and/or cooler, I’m sure that such thoughts would never pass through my mind. And I keep hearing that some teens can be persuaded to borrow books once we lure them in with the games, so I can’t – and never will – really argue that libraries shouldn’t be offering games.
But I had to laugh when I saw this opinion piece, “Our Public Libraries Are Being Turned Into Video Arcades” by freelance writer Dave Gibson in the American Chronicle (a publication based somewhere in California, it appears). There were my most curmudgeonly thoughts, right on the screen, and I cringed to read them. Gibson writes:
Unfortunately, it appears that this country’s librarians have decided to do their part in the dumbing-down of America. What has happened to this country?…All of the librarians I have known were in love with the written word and truly enjoyed opening the door to their world to young people. Perhaps, today’s crop of young librarians would be better served answering their calling as arcade attendants and movie theatre managers.
This is, of course, the voice of the 1950s-style conservative; I’ll bet Gibson doesn’t like graphic novels, either – many of which I love (although that’s no excuse for my retro beliefs about video games). But he writes as if (roll eyes here) teens of ages past actually enjoyed the literary classics. I found them torture, and kids now find them torture. All I wish for is to see teens occasionally check out at least one object, any object, with a cover and some pages.
Watching frequent library users every day coming up to the circ desk with no books at all – only stacks of DVDs – saddens me a little. But I know that’s a personal emotional reaction it would be wrong to let those people see. I should feel happy, too, that people of all ages are still finding something they want in the library instead of staying away. I love the printed word, and I will always work hard to tell young people how great books are. Who cares what I think about Guitar Hero or DDR?
March 19, 2008 at 12:19 pm
When I was in middle school in the early 80s, a group of friends and I were the first to discover that the lone Apple II had some games loaded onto it and you could go to the desk and ask a librarian for some (gasp) joysticks and Play Games in the Library. You had to wear these huge headphones though. We loved it. It made it cooler to go to the library. And while we waited our turn we looked at newspapers, magazines and even (gasp) books.
I’m being silly here because most of us were nerds who went to the library anyway. I’m a teacher who has just signed up to take the classes needed to become a school librarian and I can’t think of much nerdier than that. But yes, we played video games in the library and we turned out all right.
It does bother me sometimes when I go into my local branch and all the computers are full and no one is browsing the stacks. My daughter even goes to the kids computer first and I sometimes wish there wasn’t a kids computer. But then she looks at books with me and we check out a bunch and she loves them, so I think it’ll be ok.