GNMC @ Georgetown

2013-04-03

Happy spring! Georgetown is looking beautiful today. (Photo taken with our Canon T4i)

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Over the last 6 months, we’ve been talking to a handful of faculty about the use of video games for Georgetown courses. Professor Nathan Hensley in the English Department was the first Georgetown faculty member to ask the library for help making video games available to students in his Methods of Literary and Cultural Studies class. While some of Professor Hensley’s students were experienced gamers with their own game consoles, many others were not. Providing access to the consoles and games through the library proved to be a great solution. For a student perspective on how games were used in his course, take a look at the Methods of Literary and Cultural Studiesclass blog.

Currently we have 3 consoles (a PS3, Xbox360 and Nintendo NES) installed at the back of the Gelardin New Media Center near the printers. There are 4 workstations in that area where we plan to add additional consoles, like a Wii or Wii U and any other system needed in courses. Thanks to Professor Hensley, we have the beginnings of a video game collection with 20 Xbox360 and Nintendo NES games he purchased for his last semester’s class. Another English faculty, Professor Caetlin Benson-Allott is teaching Horror: Tech & Techniques and wanted her students to experience the first-person shooter psychological horror video game, F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon. Professors Evan Barba and Garrison LeMasters, both in the Communications, Culture and Technology department have also joined our conversations about gaming at Georgetown.

Although we are committed to making both current and obsolete materials available for teaching and research, we’re still trying to decide whether to collect and circulate for broader entertainment usage. Some libraries, like the University of Michigan have created comprehensive collections not only for coursework but for all purposes, including entertainment. Please send us a list of current and obsolete games you’d like to have available in the media collection for your own teaching and research as well as games you think would be a good addition for other courses. Having a core list of titles from faculty will help us build a budget and get some momentum going for the gaming initiative. We’d also like to hear back from Georgetown students and faculty about whether building a larger video games collection for entertainment purposes is desirable.

Are you skeptical about why libraries would even consider collecting video games? Here’s what our Adrian Bien, my Research Asst. has written about the subject:

Inescapable in its infusion into nearly every aspect of human life, entertainment media has evolved tremendously throughout history. Each step in its evolution has met with the challenge of presenting it as academically valid material, from Shakespearean plays to Dickensian novels, and from 19th century film to its newest incarnation, video games. Most of today’s video games are multi-layered tapestries comprising intense storylines and themes that draw from and influence society to a degree we, as academics, can no longer ignore, especially considering their economic and social impact on society. USA Today reported that the video game industry contributed $4.9 billion into the U.S.’s GDP in 2010, rising from $3.8 billion in 2006. While the country’s overall GDP growth rate trudged along at 1.4% during the period between 2005 and 2009, the video game industry’s growth rate was booming at 10.6%. Michael Galagher, president of the Entertainment Software Association, states that video games are a “shining exception and ray of light in what has been a pretty dismal time.” The ESA also reports that 361 total colleges and universities, representing all 50 states, now use video games in their curriculum in addition to offering majors and graduate degrees in video game design, development, and programming. Video games are now as irremovable from our culture as film, and it’s fine time academia begins exploring the inherent intellectual value in them.

-By Beth Marhanka, Head, Gelardin New Media Center