Original Question (11/9/11):

Bruce Pomerantz (MN)

Is anyone counting video game software in their collections section? If so, how are you categorizing it?

What hath Oregon Trail (invented in Minnesota) wrought?

SDC Comments:

Ann Reed (OR)

By and large, Oregon libraries count either as databases or as “other materials”

Edie Huffman (IN)

Same for Indiana.

John DeBacher (WI)

Bruce (and others),

Assuming you mean physical items that are checked out (such as an “edutainment” CD-ROM set like Reader Rabbit, or a Playstation game), they are counted in “other materials” in Wisconsin

We only have libraries report “databases” if they are mounted (on a server or optical drive), or available online for patrons to search. I have (and Al before me) interpreted “A database is a collection of electronically stored data or unit records (facts, bibliographic data, abstracts, texts) with a common user interface and software for the retrieval and manipulation of the data” to mean that items are only counted as database if they are stored and delivered electronically (not circulated on a physical disc).

We only add new elements to the state collection if libraries clamor to report them (which is rare!). We try to be sensitive to the fact that if we include a new element, then libraries think they have to offer it.

Ann Reed (OR)

I like your approach, John, but the problem I have is that a CD ROM is an electronic media…. Unlike microfiche, books etc, that can be physically examined, DVD, CD ROM etc. have to have a machine to decode recorded electronic information.  How is the disc you insert into the CD drive different that the hard disc the computer reads for other items.

Which puts me on the fence between “other materials” and “databases”

Scott Dermont (IA)

I think we are stretching the definition of a database way out of shape if we want to call “Rock Band” a database. I think we are getting hung up on the wording of a definition rather that looking at why something is being counted. A library and the public use a database in a much different fashion than they would use a computer/console game.

Ann Reed (OR)

I think we need to revisit the definition and be more specific on our rationale to exclude “Oregon Trail” etc. When I use something like “Oregon Trail” I can envision the code, and to my mind, it is a database in a pure sense.  It would be helpful to change that definition a bit. For instance, when we talk about “database” in our office, we are usually talking about a database of magazine or other articles available via subscription over the internet. If that’s what we have in mind, lets say so. If a library develops an Access database of graveyard records, does that count?  Yeah, it is all a can of worms, squirmy ones. Lol, and don’t even get me started on “databases subscribed to via cooperative.”

John DeBacher (WI)

I see what you’re saying, but that line of thinking could slide into DVDs (video) CDs (audio) and ebooks (whatever the heck they are). Maybe it’s a sore that needs scratching (though my mom always said, “don’t pick it or it’ll never heal!”). I think of it as what someone checks out and takes from the library versus database that they access electronically either within or outside the library (though I hope my libraries don’t report the Wii games they use for programs as databases!).

I’m game to simplify vote to lump collection under one category--“stuff” and all services under “uses.” Then we can all just go hang out in that Kansas City district where the hotel is located.

Ann Reed (OR)

Lol! I hear ya!

Denise Davis had come up with a set of “boxes” that seemed to work pretty well, and was a guiding principle as we worked on collection counts a while back -- there are things you read, things your listen to, and things your watch, and then there are databases that have little bits of various kinds of things retrieved by common interface.  

Lets go with the “stuff” and “services.”  I hear KC actually has good sushi.