Video games in university libraries: synergies and collaboration at ULiège

Our contribution aims to question the place of video games in university libraries. Between technical difficulties, legal interpretations, and acquisition policies, building a video game collection in a university library raises a series of questions, sometimes common to public libraries, sometimes specific to the university context. We propose to consider these questions in three stages. First, we discuss the institutional interest of developing a video game acquisition policy in a specific context, namely the rise of training courses related to video games and digital arts in French-speaking Belgium. Second, we propose some guidelines, some fundamental principles for the integration of video games into university acquisition policies. Third, we consider the technical and legal constraints that limit the deployment of such an acquisition policy. Finally, we propose concrete avenues to allow video games to exist in university collections. by presenting the specific case of the library of the University of Liège and its collaboration with labs.