Our Public Libraries Are Being Turned Into Video Game Arcades
By Dave Gibson (01/22/08)
A recent article in my local newspaper about libraries "efforts to woo teens," caught my eye. Apparently, the works of such luminaries as Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain have been replaced with the Xbox and Nintendo Wii. It is little wonder that our nation's literacy rate continues to decline.
According to a 2007 Syracuse University study, 7 out of 10 U.S. public libraries now provide gaming to teens and pre-teens.
Jenny Levine of the American Library association told the Virginian-Pilot: "It's going to go from a trend to being mainstream. Kids really understand the gaming and the fact that the libraries are embracing something that is important to them, that really speaks to them."
Libraries are now offering video games and movies to children. Paula Brehm-Heeger, president of the Young Adult Library Services Association said of the new entertainment available: "Librarians are really trying to respond to teens and to keep the library relevant in their lives. Gaming programs can draw in teens that librarians don't otherwise see."
I suppose that literary classics, poetry, geography, and great American novels are no longer "relevant: to teenagers. Unfortunately, it appears that this country's librarians have decided to their part in the dumbing-down of America. What has happened to this country?...All of the librarians I have known were in love with the written word and truly enjoyed opening the door to their world to young people. Perhaps, today's crop of young librarians would be better served answering their calling as arcade attendants and movie theatre managers.
Generations of Americans who valued education and insisted that their children understand not only the importance but the enjoyment of the written word, have given way to barely functioning illiterates who spend hour after hour trying to get to the next level of Guitar Hero.
The CIA Factbook currently lists the United States as 21st in the world in literacy. We are well behind Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and even Cuba. Our standing in the world decreases much farther when you consider the criteria upon which the CIA defines literacy. Their survey declares literacy as the ability to read and write at 15 years-old or older.
A U.S. government study on literacy released in 2006 determined that between 46 and 51 percent of American adults read so badly that it effected their earning ability to the point of placing them below the poverty threshold. The study also showed that there had been no improvement from the results of an identical study done in 1993.
A 2006 National Geographic-Roper Survey of geographic literacy delivered some troubling results. The study focused on American adults aged 18 to 24 and found that this group lacks very basic geographic knowledge. Only 54 percent of respondents could answer all of the survey questions correctly. The following are some of the more disgusting results:
-90 percent could not find Afghanistan on a map
-one-fifth thought that Sudan is in Asia
-50 percent could not find New York on a map
-75 percent could not find Indonesia on a map
-only one-third could indicate which direction was northwest
In a time when Americans are losing jobs to foreign workers and whole industries are being moved overseas, our children need to be the most literate possible. How can we possibly compete with the ever-expanding economies of India and China if half of our population cannot read?
When I was a kid, libraries were places literate study and my parents took me there every Saturday. I read all of my books throughout the week so that I could check out more the following Saturday. It was something in which the whole family participated and something to which we all looked forward. I did not need movies or games to attract me to the library. It was a place of quiet reverence, not yet another 'safe place' for parents to dump their kids for free baby sitting!
We are headed back to a time in this country when only the rich could read and write with any proficiency, and apparently our public libraries are now on board with that disastrous goal.
(Printer friendly version) Email: Dave Gibson
