Thread: A library without books

Cushing Academy's new library

This year, after having amassed a collection of more than 20,000 books, officials at the pristine campus about 90 minutes west of Boston have decided the 144-year-old school no longer needs a traditional library. The academy’s administrators have decided to discard all their books and have given away half of what stocked their sprawling stacks - the classics, novels, poetry, biographies, tomes on every subject from the humanities to the sciences. The future, they believe, is digital.

“When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books,’’ said James Tracy, headmaster of Cushing and chief promoter of the bookless campus.

Instead of a library, the academy is spending nearly $500,000 to create a “learning center,’’ though that is only one of the names in contention for the new space. In place of the stacks, they are spending $42,000 on three large flat-screen TVs that will project data from the Internet and $20,000 on special laptop-friendly study carrels. Where the reference desk was, they are building a $50,000 coffee shop that will include a $12,000 cappuccino machine.

And to replace those old pulpy devices that have transmitted information since Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 1400s, they have spent $10,000 to buy 18 electronic readers made by Amazon.com and Sony. Administrators plan to distribute the readers, which they’re stocking with digital material, to students looking to spend more time with literature.

I mean really, how does anybody live without a $12,000 cappuccino machine?

...

Liz Vezina, a librarian at Cushing for 17 years, said she never imagined working as the director of a library without any books. “It makes me sad,’’ said Vezina, who hosts a book club on campus dubbed the Off-line Readers and has made a career of introducing students to books. “I’m going to miss them. I love books. I’ve grown up with them, and there’s something lost when they’re virtual.

Keith Michael Fiels, executive director of the American Library Association...raises at least two concerns: Many of the books on electronic readers and the Internet aren’t free and it may become more difficult for students to happen on books with the serendipity made possible by physical browsing. There’s also the question of the durability of electronic readers.

“Unless every student has a Kindle and an unlimited budget, I don’t see how that need is going to be met,’’ Fiels said. “Books are not a waste of space, and they won’t be until a digital book can tolerate as much sand, survive a coffee spill, and have unlimited power. When that happens, there will be next to no difference between that and a book.’’

It's the end of the world.

Its so much easier to control the kind of information we can get if its on computers anyways (looks around in a paranoid manner)

I don't really understand what they are doing. Students aren't checking out books, so they get rid of them, and lessen the possibility of students actually reading. If they are only going to get 18 of the readers, that will leave a lot of students having to read straight off the computer.

Ah, yes. The cutting edge of educational brilliance (full time boarding tuition is over $40K a year at Cushing) is throwing out a mainstay of learning for the last several thousand years, portable printed matter. I can definitely see the environmentalists get on board with this - stop killing the trees and instead we can have a more sterile learning environment without the arboreal bloodlust (the 47 million chemicals used when the computer is produced and then released into the environment when the thing is thrown away are conveniently never mentioned).

Never, not in this household. Dead authors printed on dead trees. Amen!

It would not be a bad idea if they chose instead to digitize every single book they have and make it available to students on the go. The ability to search an opac and find a reference volume anywhere on campus? Awesome!

Get rid of all the books? Soon they'll be graduating students with digital copies of their degrees.

Originally Posted by ewenlin

It would not be a bad idea if they chose instead to digitize every single book they have and make it available to students on the go. The ability to search an opac and find a reference volume anywhere on campus? Awesome!

Get rid of all the books? Soon they'll be graduating students with digital copies of their degrees.

The digitized books would be great as a supplement, not as a replacement.

the world is going mad.

Not only is this sad but it's stupid. ppl are always trying to save historic houses for one reason or another and yet something like this which is very historic they are throwing out. Digital isn't as reliable as the actual book. Why not keep the books and also have the digital like someone else mentioned? If nothing else, send some of those books to me! I do hope they are donating them to other libraries!!!

I had to scroll up to see if this was posted under humor, and then scroll over the link to see if it was from Lark News.

Prediction - we'll read about this institution shutting down within 10 years.

Originally Posted by OPC'n

Digital isn't as reliable as the actual book. Why not keep the books and also have the digital like someone else mentioned? If nothing else, send some of those books to me! I do hope they are donating them to other libraries!!!

Some of the books will end up being thrown away.

Considering they are only buying 18 of the digital readers, it would have made much more sense to have the digital media supplement the physical books. Unfortunately, this library is like so many churches today, trying to be cool to bring in the crowds. Keeping the books would not have allowed space for the coffee shop, which is more important to the students that old books.

Originally Posted by Edward

Prediction - we'll read about this institution shutting down within 10 years.

A school that refuses to acknowledge the need for books should close down much sooner than that.

They're not thinking ahead--books will never completely disappear. No way I'm curling up by the fire with a Kindle or Laptop.