Selection criteria for academic video game
collections
Elizabeth Tappeiner and Catherine Lyons
Hostos Community College Library, Bronx, New York, USA
Abstract
Purpose – This article aims to discuss the relevance of building video game collections in academia to support research and learning on campus and to
propose useful criteria for building video game collections in academic libraries.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors examined collection development policies of selected academic libraries as well as research
discussing the cultural, historical, and educational value of video games. The authors also examined video game playback devices, games and their
packaging, and popular game web sites.
Findings – The authors outline selection considerations for developing video game collections and propose the following criteria for selecting games:
physical characteristics, teaching and learning principles present in the games, subject matter and content, and the cultural and historical value of a
game.
Originality/value – Establishing video games in libraries is not a new topic, but most discussions have been focused on public libraries or the
entertainment value of video games in academic libraries. This article focuses on games as serious objects of study in academia and provides best
practices for video games collections development.
Keywords Video games, Selection, Collections management, Academic libraries
Paper type Conceptual paper
It is difficult to talk about gamers as a monolithic group anymore – the
demographics are now so diverse that multiple generations have grown up
with gaming. The average gamer is now 33 years old and has been playing
games for 12 years (Levine, 2006, p.7).
Academic, public, and school libraries are building video
game collections for purposes as varied as leisure, supporting
research and supporting learning. Librarians are talking about
video games at conferences and writing about them in blogs,
but very little has been written in the professional literature
about developing video game collections specifically for
academic libraries. The purpose of this article is to provide
an overview of video games collections in libraries in general,
identify resources that facilitate collection development, and
propose the following criteria for building collections in
academic libraries: physical characteristics, implications for
teaching and learning, subject content, and the cultural and
historical value of games. All of these criteria are important
factors in making selection decisions for academic library
collections.In recent years, video games have become the
focus of serious academic study in a variety of fields, including
media and cultural studies, visual arts, and educational
psychology. Research initiatives based at the Stanford
Humanities Lab (2007), Georgia Tech, MIT and elsewhere
explore the cultural significance of video games and their
potential uses in education. In universities across the country,
video game courses are being taught in graphic arts, computer
science, media studies, and humanities departments.
Examples include “Games and dreamers: the rise of
computer game culture” (Wake Forest University) and
“Computer games and simulations for education and
exploration” (MIT). Peer-reviewed academic journals
devoted to games include Games and Culture, and Simulation
and Gaming. Research on games appears in journals in area
studies, comparative literature, ethics, and critical pedagogy.
Academic libraries have only recently become involved in
the world of video games and gaming. Carnegie Mellon
University Libraries has developed a Library Arcade (2008)
featuring games to teach students research skills. In
September 2007, McMaster University in Hamilton,
Ontario hired its first immersive learning (gaming) librarian,
whose role is to use “new technologies like gaming and virtual
worlds to make libraries relevant to today’s tech-savvy
students (Bubak, 2007). Libraries at Wake Forest University
and Georgia Tech offer recreational gaming nights as outreach
to students (Rice and Harris, 2007). Many initiatives related
to video games in academic libraries focus on instruction and
outreach to students.
However, academic library collections, built to support
learning and research in their institutions, are also building
game collections to support research in many fields. The
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Library’s Gaming
Collection’s mission (UIUC Gaming Collection, 2008)
emphasizes the various disciplines and interests the
collection supports:
The UIUC Gaming collection was created to support a wide variety of
campus interdisciplinary programs, scholarly research, and student needs
involving video games. The collection supports disciplines such as
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0160-4953.htm
Collection Building
27/3 (2008) 121– 125
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 0160-4953]
[DOI 10.1108/01604950810886040]
Received: March 2008
Reviewed: April 2008
Accepted: April 2008
121