Video games in the School Library?

Permit me to begin with a block quote from Aaron J. Elkins’ article Let's Play! Why School Librarians Should Embrace Gaming in the Library:

“This summer you should play some video games to get ready for the upcoming school year. Games aren’t just for young males and have tremendous potential to enhance 21st-century literacies, including critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. Playing games will not only help you see how these skills can be developed, but also give you a shared experience that can lead to deeper interactions with your patrons.”

Now let me say that I agree with this utterly, right down to having every intention of playing video games this summer. As a passionate RPG (role-playing game) and TBS (Turn-based strategy) gamer, I know full well that modern games feature everything from critical, tactical thinking both militarily and morally. Gone are the days when a game has a single storyline the player works through; now there are choices one must make at various (often numerous) point of the game, choices which, like real-life, have very real consequences such as who lives, who dies, do realms go to war or find peace. Choices which often have no clear right answer, such as do you turn a fugitive royal friend over to an enemy kingdom to hopefully avert a terrible war, or keep him and fight for his just cause?

A screenshot from the 3DS game Radiant Historia

Wars which mean something. In the Fire Emblem game franchise when you lose a character in battle then they are dead for good, so if you want to keep your people alive you had best become a master tactician (or restart the battle if you lose someone). Sometimes there are more than two choices, but each choice takes the player down a very different path than the others to the point that, in a way, one game is now several. A combination of dynamics which, when coupled with stellar graphics, voice acting, a plotline so real and engaging you laugh and cry alongside the characters who become dear friends, confirming Elkins’ words that many modern games have “tremendous potential to enhance 21st-century literacies, including critical-thinking and problem-solving.” I find playing such games as enjoyable as reading, for one has an active role in shaping the plot and, if you make a bad choice, must live with the consequences.

However, saying that, I disagree with Elkins’ broader point best encapsulated by the second part of the article’s title: “Why School Librarians Should Embrace Gaming in the Library.” I love moral, tactical games with book-worthy storylines, and further agree with Elkins’ that “libraries have a long history of including games, puzzles, and toys in their collections.” Puzzles yes – and, in my library, riddles – various toys such as Rubik's Cubes, and board games. Board games, not video games. Believe me when I say that I know the bonding power video games can have when kids realize it is a shared interest. Indeed, “the Pew/MacArthur study found that playing videogames together can offer opportunities for positive civic experiences for youth and can foster connections to the community” (Levine). However, there is a place and time for everything, and I disagree that the library during school hours is the place and time for video games.

The reason is multi-fold, but bedrock of is maintaining the library’s traditional role as a place of reading and quiet work. I say this not as a traditionalist – though I am something of one – but because I have seen from experience what happens when that role is compromised by video games. At the middle school I works at the kids love them and, being unofficially more tolerant of them than my supervisor, I am inclined to turn a blind eye and let individual students play them if they come to the library before school or during their free period. Why? Because “gamers have had enough of reality. They are abandoning it in droves – a few hours here, an entire weekend there, sometimes every spare minute of every day for stretches at a time – in favor of simulated environments and online games” (McGonigal). It is restorative, much like reading a book for many, and lets them escape reality for a time; as said the great Fantasy author Diana Wynne Jones: “It does seem that a fantasy, working out in its own terms, stretching you beyond the normal concerns of your own life, gains you a peculiar charge of energy which inexplicably enriches you.” However, the caveat is that the students have to play them quietly and not make a social event out of it. This impedes the bonding effect video games can have, yet the alternative is what forced us to ultimately ban students from coming to the library after Lunch and why I enforce the my own quiet-gaming policy with a firm hand.

The story is simple. Students were allowed to come to the library during their Lunch period – provided they ate beforehand – and soon the students realized that the library was a perfect place for video gaming; doubly so since they were not allowed to do so in the cafeteria. The result was that before long the library became an Internet Café, with students sneaking their lunch in or not eating period so as to squeeze in more gaming time. A noisy atmosphere which, in consequence, drove out the students who wanted to use the library as it was meant to be used: for reading and/or working quietly. The gamers ignored our No Food rule, resulting in an ant colony moving in, and having to monitor so many gamers meant I could not properly help the students who had come for books. Hence the current No Library During Lunch rule and why quiet-gaming is essential because the library cannot function properly otherwise. A place and time for everything, as if said, and one will not that even Elkins’ became with “This summer you should play some video games.” This summer, not now in the library. Again, I wholly believe that school libraries should be dynamic places featuring board games and puzzles (and riddles), but not the online kind as even a passionate gamer like me is now firmly behind our No Library During Lunch rule; in fact, it was my idea. Video games are addicting because they are so fun, so engaging, so challenging, yet as the lunch fiasco proves that is a double-edged sword in schools. Students’ passion for them will often override self-discipline, particularly if a friend group is involved, and, point of order, we should not be encouraging more screen time when kids can have too much of that as it is – especially in the library, the sacred place of books and readers.

Bibliography

• Elkins, Aaron. "Let's play! Why school librarians should embrace gaming in the library." (2015).
•  Levine, Jenny. "Libraries, videogames, and civic engagement." Library Technology Reports 45.5 (2009): 11-18.
•  McGonigal, Jane. Reality is broken: Why games make us better and how they can change the world. Penguin, 2011.