#37

Certain games do not belong in the library, just as certain videos do not belong in the library. Ultimately though it depends on what your primary focus is when deciding to have such material. If you’re looking at solely raising the numbers of patrons using the library then the whole "What ever gets them in here" approach would be acceptable. Which means that we dilute our current collection with movies such as "Diehard 4, Knocked Up, Juno, I am Legend, Dewey Cox Walk Hard" all of which are videos that have mature adult themes. But hey what do we care it is raising our numbers isn't that what we want?

My personal opinion on this has changed since I have worked at the library. I used to be naive and think that by offering these items we are deterring our patrons from making better selections. Believing that a patron would spend more time at other places in our stacks then at the row of dvds and music cd's we have. I was under the impression that the library was off to better the community and to help enhance the literacy of its members. I was wrong and it was at first hard to admit, but I now realize that if we did not have these items half our patrons would never use their cards. And by use their cards I mean they would never check out with them, we'd still see several patrons surfing the internet and checking their myspaces. Although my opinions have changed I realize that, this is the direction our library is heading in. It's what the people want and not what they need, and without those patrons I’d be out of a job.

As a fellow co-worker has told me, we are here to serve and whether that be asked to dance on our hands it is our job to give the public what they want, and at this point in time it seems that the newest hit from blockbuster might just be that.

#36

It took months for me to finally complete "Dever's" Merciless Gladiator set. The pride and accomplishment I felt after spending close to 2 months here and there working at it made realize that I was pretty good at something. In World of Warcraft there is currently a type of event called arenas. Each week in order to receive points, your team must play at least 10 games, and you yourself must partake in 30% of those games. For low ranking teams usually around the 1400-1600 you might receive 200-300 points, and for the teams Dever was on I was receiving close to 500 points a week. The gear itself cost about 1200 apiece so with 5 pieces in the set, 2 months was pretty good timing. This screenshot was taken in Karazhan (A raid consisting of 10 players) all but 2 of the players in this run were real life friends, except for the character that is cropped out of this photo. It's not even earning the rewards thats the fun thing, it's doing them with your friends. Untill you've personally experienced the thrill of talking to your teammates letting them know that you've silenced the healer and now would be the perfect time to unload that DPS (Damage Per Second) they've been hiding, you could never truley understand why WoW (World of Warcraft) is as addicting as it is.

Raiding was a fun but different experience for me, it involved tremendous coordination and team work. Me and several of my friends decided that raiding was what we wanted to become good at, and formed what is known as a guild (Group of players establishing a team name to accomplish a goal). Thus "Brutality Train" was born. After raids which ended around 11:00pm we'd all get into our cars and meet up at iHop to discuss potential promotions of members, and just the overall effectiveness of our strategies. I miss those nights sometimes but it was very time consuming.

Overall learning new games such as Runescape and World of Warcraft, can be difficult even if you do have friends in the game. But after you are exposed to it for a certain amount of time it becomes almost a second nature.

#35

I have always been a big fan of games that help children learn. I believe that games such as Memory, Typershark, and other games usually found on pbs.com are all great aids for enhancing the learning experience of adolescents. Not only after spending 15 minutes with freerice was I able to achieve several bowls of rice I also learned new words. I could see that this type of software would benefit several parties, first the one learning the vocabulary and the people receiving the rewards. Overall there are many helpful programs out there that could be used in the library to perhaps enhance our patron's visits.