Gamers.....in the Library?

Gamers...in the Library?
Eli Neiburger. American Libraries. Chicago: May 2007. Vol. 38, Iss. 5; pg. 58, 4 pgs

Abstract (Summary)
Similarly, videogame events not only claim unique turf that we can build upon, they also allow your gaming community a glimpse of a library that has things that they want and a vision of what we can offer to patrons who have no demand for traditional library services.

Videogaming is a growing library draw for all ages
Videogames are a big deal these days. In 2005, 228 million new videogames were purchased in the United States for a total cost of $10 billion. To put that in perspective, 710 million new books were purchased in the United States during the same period for a total cost of $25 billion. The U.S. videogame market is a third of the size of the book market in terms of units and almost half its size in terms of revenue. We could compare that to DVD sales too, but you'd only get depressed about the fact that DVDs outsold books by more than 2 to 1 in 2005.

Gaming is not a niche, at least not anymore. While videogames certainly still have that new-fad smell about them, the fact is that the first videogame machines went on the market over 30 years ago and the kids who played those games, like yours truly, are now parents. According to an Entertainment Software Association survey, 69% of U.S. designated heads of households now play some videogames and the average game player is 33 years old, with 25% of those gamers over 50 years old. Gamers are also well spread across genders-adult women (30% of gamers) actually make up a larger part of the gaming public than teenage boys (23% of gamers).

Videogames have become a significant-and for many a central-component of our culture, especially among those nefarious "kids today." For example, 91% of internet-using teenagers play games online. That's a higher use rate than instant messaging and a substantially higher use rate than the things that teenagers are usually allowed to do on the computers at the library.

Bridging the yawning chasm
Which brings us to the biggest piece of the games-in-libraries puzzle-those listless, desultory teens. They're very hard to reach with most library programs and services, either because the events and services aren't appealing to them or perhaps because they aren't willing to riskwhatever all-important social standing they've gained by being seen attending a library event.

While we all have our cadres of dedicated teen library fans (usually the children of dedicated library fans), most public libraries typically reach a small percentage of the teenagers in their service area. That's not really surprising. If they steal all their music (and maybe even movies) online, download them legally, or subscribe to Netflix; have to suffer through Catcher in the Rye for class by Friday; and think they have all the Google-fu they'll ever need (even if that may not be true), what do they think we have to offer them? In their eyes, all our core services have been supplanted by more flexible, better-stocked, more convenient offerings, with no shushing, dirty looks, or fussy rules about cell phones involved.

The bigger problem is that it's not just the teenagers who feel that way. You don't typically see many more 20-somethings around the library (although they do generally tend to shake off the worries about being seen at the library and come in for stacks of CDs to rip onto their iPods). For many public libraries, there's a yawning chasm between the time that a patron gets too old for Pinkerton (or perhaps Potter) and the time that they have an 18-month-old and they're desperate to get out of the house.

At the first Gaming in Libraries Symposium held in December 2005 in Chicago, I said, "If you don't offer them something they value now, you're going to be irrelevant to them the rest of their lives. It's not a risk we can afford to take." After that quote was included in an ALA TechSource report (along with a dorky picture of my tattoo), something interesting happened.

One of our 13-year-old Ann Arbor (Mich.) District Library gamers found and added the quote as part of his online signature so that it shows up after every comment that he makes on the library's teen blog. That comment obviously resonated with him. Of course, his signature had previously read, "Eli is awesome," which really resonated with me, but that's OK.

While the quote is intentionally dire, the fact is that libraries are teetering on a precipice. Circulation may be doing great (helped along by those GD rippers); libraries that aren't subject to a city council's mishaps may have good (or at least reliable) funding and our users are utilizing technology to get more out of us than ever before. However, who are these users? Are they the same ones we've always had culturally, economically, and ethnically? Our existing audience may be utilizing us better, but that's like preaching to the choir. The issue is that libraries may have already lost a generation or two.

A few months ago, during pre-interview patter for a local radio show about our gaming program and other teen services, I asked the host, a woman in her late 20s, if she had a library card or ever used the library. She was surprised by the question, apparently surmising that the library had nothing to offer her and assumed that we thought so too. The interviewer saw the library as a place for schoolkids and didn't see what it had to offer her until she had kids of her own.

After the interview, she mentioned how she and her friends are into the ABG network television show Lost and how she's been struggling to get caught up with the story because she had missed most of the first season. "Well, you know that the library has the first season of the Lost on DVD, don't you?" I told her. Now she was really incredulous. She simply had not thought of us in that way.

While she may someday bring her future offspring to storytime at the library, where she might walk past the DVD section and receive a whack from the clue stick, the fact remains that here was a fairly typical 20-something individual of mainstream tastes and when she had a content need, she didn't even think of us. Not for even a second. Not even as she was talking to someone who works at the library.

Libraries: The real value
If we're not careful, the notion that the public library has no value or relevance to modern life (you know you've heard it before) could become the majority view. That's not pretty when the political beast sets its sights on our funding. Someone who has disposable income and likes to shop typically has very little use for- and probably very little awareness of-what libraries are doing. But wait, it gets worse.

One day the suits running the content industry, including record labels, book publishers, and movie studios, is going to get its heads out of the sand and realize that it can strike a deal directly with the consumer for hassle-free digital media and sell vastly higher volumes at significantly reduced prices. When that happens, do you think the content industry is going to save a place for the public library in its virtual supply chain? Don't bet on it.
The fact is that traditional library services exist because publishers can't currently control what you do with a physical item once you've bought it. Their plans for digital distribution include the closing of that little loophole. When there's an e-book device that people actually like to use available at Wal-Mart for $30 that has the ability to download and display the latest bestseller (or the morning paper) for a nickel per day, our core business could disappear quickly. If you don't believe that can happen, ask a travel agent.

It's important that we stake out turf that our competitors can't touch. Storytime is turf we staked out long ago. Although there has been encroachment from bookstores, our service remains superior in quality and clearly isn't just a sales tool. Similarly, videogame events not only claim unique turf that we can build upon, they also allow your gaming community a glimpse of a library that has things that they want and a vision of what we can offer to patrons who have no demand for traditional library services.

As the rug upon which our institutions were built is being pulled out from under us, we need to be aggressive in leading the way onto a new heavier rug, with thicker pile, and a more contemporary design. People who don't know much about libraries often predict that public libraries will be dead and gone within 20 years; the rotting husks of our musty buildings still filled with copies of The Cat Who Shut Sequels, while the vibrant physiques of iTunes, Netflix, Amazon.com, and Google stand nearby whistling idly and scrutinizing their gleaming cuticles, only occasionally shooting each other dirty, disapproving, and accusatory looks.

I don't want those people to be right, and I don't think you want that either. People who think those kinds of things might not think them anymore after they've seen the vibrancy and social power of a gaming event at a library-tying together cliques, castes, and cultures over the camaraderie of friendly competition in a neutral setting. Gaming events at libraries are a relatively easy way to show the disconcertingly large audience that previously couldn't have imagined what our institutions could possibly have to offer them that we can be relevant to their lives, responsive to their interests, and places to get something they can't get anywhere else. They might even checkout a book, but that's not necessarily the point.