Libraries and playing games
The American Library Association just sponsored the fourth annual National Gaming Day @ Your Library. More than 1800 libraries participated last year. This year, an Australian librarian altered the poster to read International Gaming Day and organized a similar event there at one library. Next year, the ALA has announced that the event will indeed be the International Gaming Day @ Your Library.
For most of the general public, I suppose, it’s news that libraries and games have anything in common at all. So you may be asking why it’s so important that one day a year is set aside for hundreds of libraries to hold game days at the same time: board games, card games, and all manner of video games.
- Libraries have supported games–-at least chess–-for a hundred and fifty years.
- Three generations of Americans (Gen X, Gen Y, and Millenials) have grown up with video games. Older people are also getting into the act.
- Libraries have been about recreation ever since they started collecting fiction and best sellers for leisure reading.
- Libraries have been about information and education longer than that. Games promote problem solving, strategic thinking skills, map reading, managing multiple resources, anticipating possible outcomes, among other things–not to mention basic literacy.
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