We don’t have all the answers (Part 2)

Are you lending out games for handheld systems? Are you lending out handheld systems?

PLEASE SHARE YOUR STORIES WITH US!

This is my next step with circulating video game collections in the library. It never really donned on me to include handheld games in the mix when I was pushing for a circulating video game collection. I wish I didn’t overlook that. I see lots of kids and teens (mostly ages 6-18) in the library with the DS or PSP glued to their hands. They’re a population that is dying to be served by libraries.

Can’t wait to hear your stories. From myself and the rest of the 8bitlibrary.com crew, have a good weekend.

(I’m seeing a lot of this in my library these days. Are you?)

This entry was posted by JustinLibrarian on March 19, 2010 at 4:00 am, and is filed under 8BitLibrarian Justin Hoenke, collection development. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0.You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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#1 written by Brandon 1 year ago

I certainly do see a good deal of teen boys playing PSP. We just ordered our first wave of games to circulate here at Wayne County, and I did not include any games for portable systems. My thinking was that, given their smaller size and more delicate nature, they are easier to lose or break, even if one is not entirely careless. As for loaning out the consoles themselves, I see nothing wrong with that, but I think if a library is going to do that they should also circulate the games–so I don’t think we’ll be doing that.

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#2 written by JP 1 year ago

Adding to what Brandon said, Handhelds are a particularly good choice for libraries, because user studies show that FEMALES play them more than males (sometimes overwhelmingly more, depending on who you read). It’s one of those all-ages, both-sexes, diverse & FUN video game programming ideas. Have your library purchase a couple of DS’s for the people who don’t own one, and tell everybody POKEMON TRADE-OFF TOMORROW. You’ll get big numbers of new library users who wanna trade Pokes…

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#3 written by mkc 1 year ago

Our library started a circulating videogame collection in August/September and we circulate DS games (no PSP) in our Youth Services Department. We definitely take into account the popularity of the DS in our community and order accordingly (about 2.5:1 [DS:Xbox360 and PS2] / 1:1 [DS:Wii]).

Although our collection is relatively new, we have done fairly well in terms of damaged and lost games. In fact, we haven’t had any DS games damaged so far and only 1 lost! (Knock on wood)

Are you thinking about circulating PS3 games? Patrons have asked if we are planning to order any, but there is not as much demand as for the other games. We have considered adding PS3 games — My rationale: PS3 games are expensive and if they get scratched, the scratches can’t be buffed out like the other disks. I feel as though we get more value for our money elsewhere. Any thoughts? I would love to get another perspective!

Thanks!

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#4 written by dbaldwin 1 year ago

We have had great success in circulating DS games, and while we do have some PSP titles, they do not seem to see as much circ (though it is my personal preferred platform).

Part of our circ strategy in leaning toward the DS as the handheld “of choice” is due to the fact that our handheld gaming patrons tend to trend very young here, so we go where the demand is.

However, using our game referral sheets has really helped us be able to tailor this particular collection to our patron base. So far, we too have been fortunate in that we have only had once incident with the loss of a DS game, and it actually was eventually returned and the situation itself turned out to be more a misunderstanding than anything malicious

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