Penn State University Library now includes video games

It is sort of like every student’s dream coming true. Imagine walking into your school library and seeing your usual fair of books, magazines, videos… and video games! That is what students at the Penn State University are now seeing thanks to a movement supporting their game development program.

It makes sense that if you are studying a form of art, you should have easy access to examples of that art. That is exactly the chain of thought from the University’s Assistant Professor of Game Design, Matthew White. “These are must-plays, in terms of game design, these are titles that revolutionized the types of games we play. They set the trends.”

White is in charge of selecting which games will be offered to students through the library. It isn’t as simple as just picking the biggest and most popular titles. Instead, the catalog focuses on those games that have made important contributions to the industry and set the trends for their various generations.

I can remember reading stories every once and a while like this since the mid-90’s and always wishing that a library close to my home would do the same. Considering how big of a contributor to the entertainment industry video games have become, one would think that libraries would have jumped on the video game bandwagon a long time ago, but they haven’t. Oh, well!