Lincoln City Libraries went on social media earlier in the week to let Lincoln know of its growing video game collection and its “try before you buy” promotion. Garren Hochstetler of Bennet Martin Library told KLIN News, “We’re just looking to have materials of all kinds that will bring people in. And what’s really nice about video games is that most of them are very much story driven. Even if there’s a lot of action in the game, there’s usually big story elements with interactivity.
We like to promote stories and storytelling in many forms, and video games are just another one of those forms.”
Money is another factor in carrying games. A brand new game for the PlayStation 5 will usually run at $70. Even a game from the previous generation and many Nintendo Switch games run as high as $60. With this promotion, residents have the chance to try a game to see if it’s worth the steep price tag.
“Our checkout period is one week, but you can renew it up to four times if no one else has it on hold,” Hochstetler tells KLIN News. “We try to keep pretty current and also keep things around for a while.”
According to Hochstetler’s calculations, libraries across Lincoln and the Bookmobile have about 500 distinct titles, including older Nintendo Wii favorites and state-of-the-art PlayStation 5 exclusives.