Petition: Close the Belk Library Game Room at App State

79 signatures...79 people who always lost at Mario Bros.

I think that's sort of the long term goal here. But it seems that the faculty is so hesitant to try new methods of teaching that looking to them for input is not plausible at this point. The reality is that things have to be done with a "Field of Dreams" philosophy of if we build it they will come. Had the campus faculty been solicited for their opinions, nothing would've been decided.

Wow, you obviously didn't bother to check the links. If you had, you would see that Qatar is a well respected school in the world of design. Good job homing in on the one example that may be a weak link. Seven university libraries with gaming rooms/labs and those are just the first ones listed on a Google search. You are amazingly ignorant and short-sighted. Thanks for hacking up the hairball that is the tired old arguments against public universities. It is totally applicable...oh wait, no it isn't.

Does not the study--actual, legitimate, academic study--of video games as a major media in current culture count as free, unmonitored exploration?

What weeding are you referring to? Weeding unused and underused materials is standard library practice.

Gaming resources have a place in technology & development, graphic arts, music, psychology, education, sociology, and gender studies. Belk Library's provision of these is up to date and in keeping with library best practices. I support and applaud it.

What about the social learning that is one of the roots of the university experience? Yes, students could quietly sit, study and never socialize with their peers, but that is robbing them of very important interactions which help shape their ability to collaborate, engage, and participate in the world after college. It has been shown that collaborative gaming helps build crucial team-building skills that will benefit the student once employed. Not to mention the friendships that can be born from a mutual interest in a certain game. Honestly, if quiet study is desired, then the multitude of online resources that the library offers can be accessed from the comfort of a dorm room or apartment. The library should be for social and collaborative learning. We aren't trying to create intellectual shut-ins, we are trying to create intelligent adults who can cope with the world outside of academics.

Gross

Has anyone who signed this petition actually been to visit the new game room? It's not taking anything, any space away from those who need a place to study. The room just has the added benefits of game systems. The room can be reserved, like any of the other rooms in the library, and used for whatever appropriate purpose. I have seen gaming labs at other university libraries and if anything, we are behind the times at ASU. It seems that there is a lot of concern about students not wanting to study if there are videogame systems available. To that I would say that these students are not children. They are young, rational adults who are more than capable of managing their time appropriately, and to say otherwise is a great disservice to them, and to the university that is guiding them. Learning takes many forms, and to try to limit what forms are acceptable is astoundingly small-minded.

This isn't a toy room, this is a college. Play video games in your own time and rooms. I am a gamer, and I find this horrible.

I wonder how many...

...of these signatures...

...are fake?

I could see this in the Student Union--but not in the library. Couldn't we find a use for these resources that would better advance the academic mission of the library?

Just to be clear, "anonymous": - You think encouraging students to play video games in the library is what will "allow our university to prosper as a new-age, technologically advancing organization"? Do you think this, for instance, is more useful than allowing rooms and resources for students to study computer technology, math, physics, sustainable development, and so on? I don't understand how the defense of a gaming room over other priorities that many of us support--and which fully recognize the importance of science and technology--helps us enter the new world you are describing. Did the library have a radio room in the 1920s? A TV room in the 1960s? I doubt it. Those may have been emblems of new technology, but it was understood there's a difference between studying for the purpose of improving technology and just using it to play. That, it seems to me, is the issue. - Also, you specifically support hiring "adjunct" faculty, even though they're often poorly paid and lack job security? I don't understand why you're specifically targeting them. They have a bad enough deal as it is..

The university may be at fault by hiring adjunct faculty who are both "scared of change" as well as not "willing to change". Such faculty will not allow our university to prosper as a new-age, technologically advancing organization. A sad day it is.

There are gaming rooms located in the student union right next store, and the student union has just undergone a significant expansion. If more gaming space is needed perhaps it should be found there, not the library.

students are fully able to play those games in and out of their rooms, but, in the library? Thom Tillis and folks would love to use this as further fodder against higher education!

I forgot. Yes. Qatar. Good model. Must be a "best practice."

That's true. Neither is hiring adjunct faculty. Neither is raising tuition at public universities. Neither is administrative bloat. Neither is subsidizing college athletics with student fees. I guess I must be "afraid of change."