Thursday, February 11, 2010

Do School Libraries Need Books?

As some of you may know, I'm not a GSLIS student. My current home department is the Computer Science department. I found this debate over at the New York Times on libraries interesting, and I would like to hear some of your comments on the topic. The debate concerns whether or not we still need physical books in libraries with, among other things, the increasing use of e-readers and the ever decreasing amount of books actually being checked out or browsed. I personally hate reading anything longer than a blog post on a screen and kill lots of trees printing things (I promise I print double-sided and with multiple sheets on each side of the page!), but I'm curious. What do some of you think?
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3 comments:

  1. AmandaFebruary 11, 2010 at 11:54 PM

    So, a discussion about this article is also happening in my collection development class, and I'm going to rephrase what I said there.

    If the library offers its users books - regular old physical books - anyone who is literate can take them home and read them. No extra technology or know-how is required - and that is a huge deal.

    Let's say school and public libraries did start buying e-books, not in addition to, but in lieu of physical books. All of a sudden, someone who wants to read that book has to either sit at a public terminal in the library for hours, probably taking turns with other patrons - or they have to own a computer/Kindle/iP(o/a)d.

    It depends on where you are. In a lot of communities, you can safely assume that enough people have access to those technologies that an investment in e-books is worthwhile. It's much harder to justify when your user base lacks access to computers, etc. at home - or when they are just not comfortable using new technologies.

    One possible solution is to do what Cushing did and buy a whole bunch of Kindles - but that isn't ideal for most libraries. For one thing, it's an enormous initial investment when eBook readers cost $250 a pop. It doesn't solve the problem of people who are not able to/interested in using new technologies. And it creates huge problems when Kindles get lost or stolen, and suddenly somebody owes the library hundreds of dollars.

    For reference sources, online stuff works great. School libraries were never letting kids take home their encyclopedias, so everybody gets the same access within the library, and kids who have access to computers at home can do some research remotely. That's fine. But when we start replacing circulating materials with e-books, I get concerned. That leaves a lot of people behind.

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  2. brittanyFebruary 12, 2010 at 1:23 PM

    Yeah, I agree. I find it interesting in these conversations that very few people mention some of the problems that we have to deal with when reading a great deal on screens in addition to simple access to the technology such as increased eye fatigue and strain. We also read slower and have to re-read more often when reading on screens. I don't know. I guess I'm just not convinced that moving to libraries with fewer or no books at all is a good idea.

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  3. AnonymousFebruary 17, 2010 at 12:29 PM

    Here are some responses, from students, to the article:
    http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/the-library-through-students-eyes/
    interesting comments -- pro & con . . .
    enjoy!
    Robin

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