23.17 Console gaming

Speaking of playing, a lot of Library 2.0 fans point to console games – Xbox 360, Wii, Playstation and their forbearers – as a feature of L2.0. LCPL has some experience using console gaming at the Cascades Teen Centers. Now, I can hear the question, what does video gaming have to do with libraries, exactly… and I can’t say that I really have an answer. Except that for our young users (and for us old users, if we are lucky) all experience has the potential to be a learning experience. The cognitive tasks associated with getting good at Pokemon Diamond, Madden 2007, or God of War are not small; and in many ways a lot more complex than those associated with being a power user of Horizon’s Information Portal. So why do games belong in libraries? It’s not the game, it’s the playing. And if they belong in the library for teen center, why not always?