Big news this week as Grand Theft Auto IV breaks not just video game sales records but all entertainment industry (film, music, etc.) records for first day ($310 million) and first week ($500 million) sales. If Halo 3 didn’t do it, GTA surely cements the video game industry as a, maybe even the, leading force in entertainment.

So what does this mean in terms of you and your local library? Quite a bit:

The Games
The first and most obvious (although maybe not if you think of your library only in terms of books): there’s a good chance many of the games you’re looking for, and shelling out 50 bucks or more for, are sitting on the shelves of your local library. And don’t forget the walkthrough books. Many libraries even loan game consoles.

The Job Market
An industry growing this fast and pulling in this much revenue is hot for new talent. From coding to writing to art and animation, your library is the perfect place to start researching the ins and outs of the business and what it takes to get your foot in the door. Here is some material to get started with, but there are dozens more. Your reference librarians are also a great resource to get the best information in your hands if you’re having trouble locating what you need. Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Critical Analysis
From health concerns and marketing sex and violence to children to improved hand-eye coordination and visual analysis of information, there’s no shortage of critical material regarding video games. The industry and its products are valid topics for academic consideration at all levels of education, and your library can serve as a research hub.

*trumpet sound*
We're getting excited here, as the number of new registered users on WorldCat keeps going up. At last count, we're at 194,634. I know this number might seem small right now to some, but the more people hear about WorldCat and use it--the more front and center the Library becomes in everyone's minds as a great place to go for information, knowledge and life-changing learning. Online and in person.

If you have friends who haven't created a profile on WorldCat yet, now would be a good time to mention it to them. We're going to be watching that registered users count pretty carefully until we hit the 200,000 milestone. There's even talk of featuring the 200,00th profile in some way...stay tuned for details!

A recent feedback message questioned whether libraries have a place on the social Web. If ease of use, community, experience and knowledge are valued; then libraries and librarians are perfectly suited for this new online environment. Many, many other bloggers have posted on this topic, including all of the bloggers ranked by OEDb and several books and articles have been published on the topic lately. This is just my take from the WorldCat.org side of things.

Why Social Networking

Social networking and Web 2.0 in general have come to mean many different things. I can understand why the terms--and even some of the tools we associate with the terms--are misunderstood. We at WorldCat.org are not thinking so much about social networking, rather we are building a space where information seekers, library patrons and librarians can come together and collaborate.

We are thinking well beyond the me-tooism of chasing 'friends' on MySpace or 'fans' on Facebook, even as we exploit those environments to bring library resources closer to Web users. If WorldCat.org was just a list of 'friends' and the books they have read, it would be nothing more than all the other book related sites.

It's All About Easy

Librarians and professional researchers have had access to OCLC's WorldCat database for decades. But we made the public face of that database easy to use so everyone can benefit from the knowledge accumulated in libraries and from the experience of librarians.

Think libraries don't have a place among Web 2.0 rock-star sites? Think again. Ease of use is a hallmark of Web 2.0. Consider Google Maps, YouTube or Flickr.

The first generation of Web-based tools provided services similar to what these sites offer, but the tools of yesterday required patience, arcane knowledge and often browser plugins and high-speed Internet access. We were able to share photos in the 1990's and even earlier, but those tools were so complicated or expensive that most people never bothered. In fact most people didn't even know the opportunity to learn from and share with each other existed online. IMHO we all lost out.

We are making WorldCat.org as easy to use as possible and building tools to help Web users everywhere to discover the wealth of information libraries, experts and librarians can bring to bare on common questions. By brining library resources to the Web user, we will increase the reach and impact that a 'serious researcher' or librarian can have within their area of expertise.

So thank a librarian, a teacher, a student, a professor and a sergeant. Thank a stay-at-home mom, a pastor, a rabbi. Thank a business analyst, an entrepreneur and a delivery driver. Thank your neighbors for helping to create this great learning environment of Web 2.0. And I thank the collective You for so many years of sharing and teaching.