Something Fishy at the Library

I heard from the NPR on my way to work this morning. A library made a comment on the changing role of public libraries on the air. He mentioned that the local libraries provide a variety of services to their patrons, including loans of books, videos, DVDs, and as well children and adult programs. He pointed out that most "radical' change is that library provides wireless. Patrons bring their laptops and use the wireless at the library FREE. Yes the role of public libraries has been changed dramatically in the past five years. But I have to say, the most radical change is "gaming at the library."

Here is my issue: I don’t like kids playing games on the computers in my library. Don’t be wrong. I am not an anti-gaming librarian. I just prefer to have our young library patrons make good use of the public terminals such as learn how to utilize PowerPoint with clipart and word art for their assignments or how to use the electronic databases. But, gaming? I feel it is not only deprived the kids of reading books, it also makes certain amount of computers not available to the patrons who would like to do bona-fide research. After all, library should be a place where one learns and enjoys reading.