This horrifies me

[ellid]

Cushing Academy discards all its library books and goes completely digital.

Yes, the future is digital - but what about the books that haven't been digitized? And what about the students? Did they ask for this?

And the ultimate question: what happens if the servers are wiped? Or the technology is superseded? Cushing Academy won't have any paper backups, and where will they be then?

Comments

[samantha-vimes.livejournal.com]

What about the comfort and conveniences of paper? I get visual vertigo, and I think that's why I have trouble reading long things on a screen.

[busaikko]

Wow. Um. It seems to me that they're confusing a few things:

1. students do not use the books in the stacks... therefore the stacks are not needed [I would say, why not have teachers encourage students to use the library more effectively?]

2. libraries carry different kinds of books, some of which are easily outdated (a printed book of maps will likely be less current than Google) and others of which are fairly static (literature, poetry, big coffee-table books of photographs, etc.). They are tossing the good with the bad. The best teacher I ever had was a passionate collector of Whitman's Leaves of Grass, and he gave us copies from various editions which showed the changes Whitman made over the years -- as well as a sense of history and moment. I very much doubt even the fantastic work of Project Gutenburg will ever be able to replicate such an experience.

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry Professor Snape, but the utility company ate my homework...

Sure, it makes sense to digitize stuff. Especially stuff that gets out of date and has to be replaced regularly (maps, statistical records, newspapers). However dumping all paper is tossing the baby out with the bathwater.

[persevero.livejournal.com]

Sends shivers to this daughter-of-a-bookseller's heart. (I notice they're keeping the antiquarian books, though!) Aren't there are lots of practical issues, too? I use my laptop for reading fanfiction, and even use it to read in bed. But I absolutely cannot read the screen out of doors (otherwise I'd get a lot more fresh air) - can a Kindle or equivalent be used in bright light? I write on (my own) textbooks. It is a lot easier to scan back and forth between chapters, or use an index or a glossary, on real paper. And even more to keep several books open at once - over a day in the library I gradually disappear behind a wall of books and journals. And over and above the practical and ethical issues, one thing above all. Like Cushing Academy's librarian, I love the smell of books.

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

I will be interested to see how this goes. This will be an interesting case study for the complete digitization of a library.

As an unapologetic bibliophile, I shudder at getting rid of books. But, space is always an issue for libraries.

Being that this is a high school, the odds of them having books that aren't easily replaceable are pretty slim. In the article, it says they kept the "rare" books.

Being a private school, my guess is that they and the vast majority of their students have the money to keep up with the tech the school requires.

I have your same concerns about servers, natural disasters, whatnot. Books can survive having buildings fall down around them, computers usually don't. But, I do think this will be a valuable case study.

When it comes to libraries, it's kind of crazy what sort of decisions are made without consulting patrons or even library staff. One of my professional library lists has been rife with posts about library closures due to budget issues where people go into work and are given their two-week notice because there just isn't money in the budget for their positions any longer. The administration of a large California arts library associated with one of the huge schools (UCLA or USC, can't remember which) only just narrowly avoided being shut down because librarians/faculty/scholars wrote to them about keeping open such a valuable international resource.

[kamion.livejournal.com]

Which are the stories we still know of the Anglosaxon or the Celts? The ones that were kept oral or the ones that were written down on smelly parchment?
Which writings of the Maya's we still know? the hunderds of writings in screenfolded books of treefiber or dearskin or the writings in stone on monuments.
What survived the tooth of time? the songs at the court of king Nebukadnezar or his administration on claytablets?

Digitized writting is the most feeble medium to preserve text, it is not only easy to destroy, it also complicated to obtain, it needs suffisticated machinery to open.
And it need maintenance to preserve. Look at film material of the early 20th century, most of it is in a worse condition then the libraries of the 17th century.
And maintenance will be the crucial factor, then times get tight and librarians get sacked, books just can collect dust, digital knowlegde fades.
The best of course would be to carve the complete Library of Congress in slabs of basalt rock, but that would be a bit unpractical in daily use.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

I prefer paper myself...

On one person's comments that outdated things like maps, statistical records, and newspapers make sense to replace, that would be incorrect, unless by "replace" is meant digitizing them. And even then, maps are a pain in the a** to use in electronic format. Naturally we need some sort of record of statistics, etc., for long-term studies. And historians use old maps on a regular basis to figure out where X was, by comparing older maps (with the naming practices of X's time) and current maps. Or seeing how the borders of a country have changed over time, etc.

As a high school, it's true they're less likely to have books that possess any intrinsic value, but lets hope the idea doesn't catch on with too many places.

Space is definitely a problem for libraries though -- as they get in new materials, where does it all fit? The library my brother Kent works at decided to keep the books (less expensive to pay for storage than to digitalize them I guess), but store the less-in-demand ones in off-site storage.

[harpnfiddle.livejournal.com]

I like reading books in my hand. Most lg paperbacks fit in my new purse (thanks alphasarah) so I can read in the Dr's office while waiting for my mother. The Kindle is way outside my pricerange, and the books for it are not cheap. I buy used books, mostly. I listen to audiobooks in my car that my D-I-L has put on our family intranet and I download onto CD. The books I buy new are craft and art books. Those are VERY hard to read on the computer.

Ouch.

[animangel.livejournal.com]

The pleasure of reading books and roaming through the stacks of a library aside, I can say this seems like a very bad idea.

I am a science PhD student, which means I read a lot of scientific articles.
I admit, I very rarely use the print journals for scientific articles, however, I do not read them on the computer. I always print out my scientific articles because I don't absorb them on the computer like I do when I read them on paper. I can't read for the length of time or with the same attention that I do when read things on paper. Why this is I do not know, but there is a (probably measurable) difference.

This doesn't even touch the fact not everyone can afford a kindle or the downloads of the papers (again, a problem I run into sometimes with articles I need for schoolwork).

This wants me want to write a dystopian short story about it.

[zaduzbina.livejournal.com]

This is not a surprise to me. Watching my husband's newspaper employer go under as a result of on line news, made me wonder how long it would take to see the book disappear.

Me. I'm buying up books for my collections now. Is there a Kindle in my future??