Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Serving underserved youth.
I found an interesting article about linking gaming to underserved youth. Levine, Jenny, Library Technology Reports; Sep/Oct2006, Vol. 42 Issue 5, p10-17, 8p: the article "discusses reasons why libraries should consider offering gaming resources to patrons despite their perceived lack of educational value and the fact that most people participate in gaming from their homes. The author argues that the traditional notion of libraries as purveyors of books is not accurate today, and that modern libraries offer far more in the way of educational and informational media; games are another extension of this trend. The most fundamental of library services--the promotion of information literacy--can benefit from the incorporation of gaming by facilitating outreach to members of the community who would otherwise not enter the library." I could not copy/paste into the post, as it is pdf. The article is in EBSCOhost.
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Most of the libraries I had been in in the last decade were college libraries, so about six months ago when I went into a public library to get books on parakeets, I was surprised to see so many games for people to check out. I asked the circulation desk about them and they were pretty happy to admit they carried the video games and that there is always a waiting list for them. I saw the waiting and really wasn't surprised by how many names were on it.
ReplyDeleteEven though most of the video games don't offer any educational value, they do get the kids, that wouldn't normally come in, to enter the library and use other resources. I saw some of the kids with a video game, but they were also carrying books. Society is changing and the libraries are adapting to it. Great article Teresa!
Also, It came up as a regular post, not a pdf within it. Weird how it does that.
I tried to comment on your post earlier, but it doesn't show. I will try again! Video games are certainly popular with people, especially younger people. I would hope that these patrons would learn to take advantage of all the library's resources.
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