I would like to share this interesting article on an American boarding school library getting rid of their book collection and replacing with it with kindles and databases: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-10-26-kindle-school-library_N.htm
I had the opportunity while down at the SLANZA conference to put the question to a panel of eight high-achieving, keen-reading students whether they prefer to use print resources or e-books - the answer was 100% in favour of print books. I would tend to question the library environment and culture within the school that books weren't being borrowed in the first place. Ongoing data on the students' literacy and achievement standards will be essential now that they have these millions of e-books but only 65 kindles to distribute them on, and 13 databases but what computer access . . .
I find it a fascinating topic - would love to hear other peoples comments.
Thanks Julia, for that provocative post - it is a pretty radical thing that college is doing ! Here is a related article from Library Journal on the future of reading which may be of interest...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6703852.html
Here is another article on "bookless libraries"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/06/library
"What started as a debate over whether brick-and-mortar libraries would survive much further into the 21st century turned into an existential discussion on the definition of libraries, as a gathering of technologists here at the 2009 Educause Conference pondered the evolution of one of higher education’s oldest institutions.
“Let’s face it: the library, as a place, is dead,” said Suzanne E. Thorin, dean of libraries at Syracuse University. “Kaput. Finito. And we need to move on to a new concept of what the academic library is...”