Kent Cooper Room now renting video games

Where on campus can students learn to skateboard like Tony Hawk, play the guitar like a rock star or hang out with the characters from Star Wars? \nThe Kent Cooper Room in the Herman B Wells Library now features video games available for checkout.\nMonique Threatt, department head of the Kent Cooper Room, said the decision was based on current research and discussions with faculty, especially professors from the telecommunications department who believe that gaming is becoming an important topic in several educational fields. \n“They have been teaching various games for a while now,” Threatt said of the telecommunications faculty, “and the gaming is very popular at some of the library conferences that are going on.”\nThreatt said gaming is becoming one of the biggest advances in technology for higher education. \nBut besides being educational, she said the new collection also provides students with a leisure activity. \nThe collection currently includes about 10 games for X-Box 360 and Nintendo’s Wii and GameCube, including “Mario Strikers Charged,” “Resident Evil 4” and “NBA Live 06.” The library will also be adding games for PlayStation 2 in the future, she said.\n“We’re seeing that games are playing a very important role, especially for the future of technology and education,” Threatt said. “There are all these gaming groups on campus that we didn’t even know existed, so we’re really trying to support the instructors and their students, as well as leisure and entertainment.”\nSophomore Scott Gill said he believes video games can be used for both educational and \nentertainment purposes. He said that offering them at the \nlibrary shows that games are becoming an even bigger part of the culture.\n“I kind of see it as an acceptance of video games as an entertainment medium,” Gill said. “I think it’s going to be really useful for design students who are interested in going into video games and art design.”\nEven though the collection has only been available for two months, Threatt said, the student response has been positive. In fact, she said, the games are almost always checked out.\nDaniel Sanford, president of the Indiana University Gamer’s Guild, a gaming club on campus, said he believes the library has a duty to offer games. \n“It’s the library’s responsibility to offer information access in various media formats, not just books,” Sanford said. “Video games are just another aspect of it. They’re just another way to present information.”\nWith the positive feedback and various research reports affirming its educational value, Threatt said gaming will only become a bigger part of higher education in the future.\n“I don’t think gaming is going away,” she said. “Major conferences and speakers say gaming is here to stay, and it’s only going to get more advanced.”