Should Videogames be allowed to be in the Library

[Heath]

From my experience of using public libraries (last two years or so) the main reason people go there, young people definitely, is just to use the computers and go on the internet. For that reason, I think this would be a good idea. If I'm honest, my first thought when I read this thread was that it just wouldn't be practical, but the system Rantzien outlined sounds rather good. I was also going to say it might be rather expensive, but then again I'm sure there's plenty of people (myself included) who are sitting on loads of old games they'll never play again and would happily donate to a library.

I was thinking that it might make more sense for libraries to be stocking 'culture' games over whatever the flashy game of the month is. But then I realized:

a) who are they to judge the value of archiving a game? Quite the pretentious attitude imo. Not to mention I don't think the average library staff is remotely qualified to do so.

b) Libraries stock the latest pulp paperbacks and trashy romance novels. I refuse to believe that bestselling games fall lower on the art scale than a lot of these.

But then how do librarians decide which books to stock? Surely if they're stocking trashy romance novels and pulp paperbacks then the net is being cast pretty wide: why couldn't the same be done for computer games?

[VeloZer0]

That was the point of the post, in my head I was applying a double standard to the stocking of books to the stocking of video games.