With the standard line being that "video games are bad," it's nice to see people actually being encouraged to play them. Nicer when it's librarians being encouraged to play them. At the annual American Library Association meeting in Washington, a room full of librarians were recommended to get their game on. The reason? Today's students are "digital natives," while librarians are "digital immigrants" — meaning that librarians might have embraced tech and learned the language, but it's still not their first language.

According to James Paul Gee, a linguist who is the Tashia Morgridge Professor of Reading at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Why Video Games Are Good for Your Soul author, digital natives never read the instruction booklet before playing. Rather, they just figure it out as they go along. So students shouldn't be expecting to read a big instruction booklet of tools they'll be using in the library. What's more, tools should be designed with this in mind. In hopes of connecting with today's students, George M. Needham, vice president for member services of the Online Computer Library Center, even suggested that libraries host LAN parties in the libraries after hours and that librarians themselves play more video games.

Wow, libraries just got a little cooler. Brian Ashcraft

Librarians Urged To Game [Inside Higher Ed via Game|Life]

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