Welcome to the Video Game Librarian

Welcome one and all to the Video Game Librarian. The Video Game Librarian was originally an occasional column written by me, John Scalzo, for Gaming Target. If you want to see how it all began, the original Video Game Librarian articles are archived here.

The new Video Game Librarian website is meant to be useful to both librarians interested in gaming and gamers who want all the latest game news without that annoying fanboy slant from someone who's been playing video games for more than twenty years and worked in a library for the last ten.

For librarians, the site will include articles offering tips on how librarians can integrate games into their libraries, stories about what other librarians are doing with games and programming ideas. It will also feature resource guides exploring every corner of the video game world for those who want to learn more (like how the ESRB ratings work, a primer on projectors, core collection ideas and directories of all the best gaming sites).

For librarians who want to stay current on everything game-related, The Video Game Librarian will also have all of the latest release dates, information on price drops and details and opinions on game-related movies, music and books.

The Video Game Librarian has been featured in the Library Journal Tech Blog, ALA TechSource, The Shifted Librarian, Kotaku, Joystiq, Slashdot, the Guardian Games Blog and countless librarian's blogs.

About The Author
John Scalzo has been playing video games for over twenty years and has worked in libraries for the last ten.

He also writes for Gaming Target, where he began the Video Game Librarian column. At Gaming Target, he regularly updates The Exclusive Arms Race, an analysis of the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii's exclusive offerings along with routinely writing about the "retro" side of gaming. His favorite games also tend towards the classics and his favorite genres include platformers, side-scrolling shooters and puzzle games.

According to John, the greatest game of all time is a five-way tie between Tetris, Mario Kart 64, Contra III: The Alien Wars, The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario 64.