This article is from the first edition of The Video Game Librarian website I published between 2008 and 2010. It was originally written on October 24, 2008.

Now this is a great idea. The Nottingham Trent University in the United Kingdom has started the National Videogame Archive…

[T]he Archive is working to preserve, analyse and display the products of the global videogame industry by placing games in their historical, social, political, and cultural contexts. This means treating videogames as more than inert, digital code: at the heart of the National Videogames Archive is the determination to document the full life of games, from protoypes and early sketches, through box-art, advertising and media coverage, to mods, fanart and community activities.

The archive will attempt to preserve video gaming’s rich history, especially the earliest so they are not forever lost like some early examples of film, TV and rock & roll.

And on that note, they’ve started another site, Save the Videogame, that is taking nominations from gamers on just what titles deserve saving. Of course, the correct answer is “all of them”, but I’d imagine space constraints prevent that.

Who knows, maybe they’ll even settle the debate over whether “video game” is supposed to be one word or two (but really, it’s supposed to be two words).