What is a library without books?
Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 06:25AM From NYTimes blog post "Do School Libraries Need Books?" http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/do-school-libraries-need-books/ James Tracy, headmaster of Cushing Academy, the school that has drawn much criticism for discarding its print library collection, writes:
This [discarding books] freed up our beautiful library space to be used in a new way, and allowed us to rethink how a library for a 21st-century secondary school might be constituted. Some have mistakenly supposed that Cushing’s decision was intended to cut costs, but, quite the contrary, this
was an investment of expanded resources to provide a new model of a learning commons at the center of an educational community.
In planning this change, our key administrators traveled around the country to look at the best examples of how dynamic learning spaces work. Our library is now the most-used space on campus, with collaborative learning areas, classrooms with smart boards, study sections, screens for data feeds from research sites, a cyber cafe, and increased reference and circulation stations for our librarians. It has become a hub where students and faculty gather, learn and explore together.
By reconceptualizing our library, our teachers and students now have better access to vast digital resources for research and learning. But they need more help from librarians to navigate these resources, so we have also increased our library staff by 25 percent.
There is a lesson to be learned here.
There are four other voices on this topic as well. Which ones sound the most defensive and reactionary?
Reader Comments (11)
The satellite campus of UGA where I attend my face-to-face classes (about half of the program is online) has a library. It looks like a computer lab with a few periodicals. The librarian showed us how to really dig into the databases for research and showed how everything in the university's holdings can be requested to be sent to this library. He joked that when he isn't there it IS just a computer lab, but when he's present it's a library.
I have not read all the contributions yet. My weekend reading I suspect. I would love to do something similar to the Cushing model - but I would still have a considerable fiction section - in print. It just would look more like Barnes & Noble et al. Kindle's are OK for reading for research purposes. I can even imagine myself (and some of our kids) getting used to a kindle for recreational reading. But most of my avid readers wrinkle their noses at the idea of a paperback book - let alone a kindle. And I would have to have a LOT MORE kindle's or iPads than Cushing has to keep up with the demand.
But I am SO jealous of the type of spaces described above. I have a TINY library and never have enough space for all the groups that want to be here. All because I could NOT make our architect understand the concept described in this excerpt. In the architect's mind there was no connection between the concept of a library and the concept of collaborative, wired learning spaces. But - we make the best of what we have and I foresee eventually removing a LOT of book shelving.
Until I read Jacquie's comment, I was thinking, "But what about fiction?" And then I thought about how little fiction I read voluntarily in high school, and how little fiction my kids read voluntarily, when they were in HS. During the school year. So maybe that isn't so bad, but I would definitely have a ton of magazines that would circulate. Or maybe not. Paradigm shift that it is. But when I read how they've hired more staff, it tells me maybe they get it after all. And maybe I don't get it.
I would love to hear more from more places who have tried this!
Just today I had a student check out 9 books for vacation week. She said she would do anything for a Kindle that she could load with digital books from our library. The book format is holding her back as a reader.
We are working actively with our vendors on a pilot for paperless curriculum content, delivered via handheld device. This will allow us to incorporate important accommodations like text-to-speech and collaborative note activities that will include all learners.
We haven't taken as extreme an approach as Cushing, but we got rid of much of our collection to free space and create a learning commons. Circulation statistics are through the roof, we have increased class visits, increased professional development, and have become a vibrant hub of school activity.
Cushing is blazing the trail for all of us, and I look forward to learning more from their experience.
Doug,
A quick glance at how print is used:
0-100: Guiness
100's: nope
200's: a few books on religion for students banned from the computer
300's: a few social welfare books for debates
400's: nada
500's: nada
600's: health books some, for projects.
700's: who cares
800's: "where can I get a poem, like fast dude?"
900's: countries, countries, countries. Never have the right ones, yet everything else...
bio: ha
Ref: for those banned: Britannica and some history. Rest, eh.
Fiction: Rarely do they go into the stacks
New fiction: can't keep up. But once the newness wears off, see ya.
Of course I think we need all of these, but not as much as we used to. And what we do get has to be simple, quick to find, and extremely useful in a pinch (Not, go to the index...find the volume). Otherwise, forget it.
Ummm....I don't think I like the idea of a library without books. I get that many reference materials may be accessed online, but there is something to having a book in your hands, particularly when one is studying English Literature. The smell of the old book, the feel of it, that dusty air. These are all familiar and somewhat comforting sensations which put the student or the teacher into the frame of mind that they are about a special purpose. I know I have posted here before that I don't like second hand books, but one of my favorite places was the old book shop at my university campus. I spent hours in there searching for a gem amogst the chop.
Doug, I'm curious, what would your library of the 21st Century look like, be, and do?
I come from the same mindset as Todd. A book in hand is worth more than ten Kindles. I have to admit the thought of a "paperless" library leaves me feeling a bit threatened. I work in a school library and want to continue to foster a love for reading in students for many years to come. Reading about how this"new" style of library still needs book-geeks like me gives me hope that maybe I'm not so easily replaced!
I can't imagine a library without books. I see the future with the Kindle and it scares me a little. I volunteer in my local library and see the kids reading lists and see these books that have been around since I was a kid. Reading is more than looking at words on a page, it is the whole experience of the book: the feel, the smell, and the sound (in those library plastics). This is what I learned to love about reading and kids are missing out on that these days. I've seen too many kids that view reading as a chore and are missing out on the pleasure of the whole reading experience. I am pretty savvy technically, but give me a real book over a Kindle any day.
Hi Jim,
I like your librarian's expression! The "bookless" library seems more feasible the higher the level of education, I sometimes think. And then I start to ponder all the features and e-book might have that would help struggling readers.
Doug
Hi Jacquie,
My best guess is that most libraries will rightly have both print and electronic books for a long time yet. Fiction in print, non-fiction electronic. But I don't think anybody really knows anything except change is a coming!
Doug
Hi Janet,
For HS kids who do read for recreation, fiction or non-fiction, portable devices for doing so (cell phones, iPhones, iPads, Kindles, Nooks, etc.) may well be more appealing anyway!
Doug
Hi Robin,
You really should write up your important experiences to share with other school librarians in professional publications. OR would you like to do a guest blog on the Blue Skunk????
Thanks for considering this,
Doug
Hi Bob,
Interesting observation. Can't I get the Guiness Book of World Records online somewhere?
Oh, I have no problem finding the other kind of Guiness.
Doug
Hi Todd and Bradley,
For many of us, print books have fond associative memories. I personally think there is a link between reading and being held on one's mother's or father's lap and hearing their voices that makes us fond of print.
Do a search on the Blue Skunk for Miles's Library (5 parts, I think) if you're interested in my version of a future library.
All the best,
Doug
Hi Brenda,
I'm worried that if we as librarians fail to adapt to e-books, we really WILL be replaced!
Doug
Thomas Mann at the Library of Congress has offered some thought provoking ideas about books and libraries that might be worth looking at here (T. Mann, “The Importance of Books, Free Access, and Libraries as Places and the Dangerous Inadequacy of the of the Information Science Paradigm,” Journal of Academic Librarianship, vol. 27, no. 4 (July 2001), pp. 268-281). These ideas need to be modified and applied to the work students do in K-12 schools, but I think something of a case can be made for that
It’s naïve, Mann says, to think that intellectual property laws are going to disappear or that human nature will outgrow the profit motive in the next century. If a profit is to be derived from copyrighted materials on the Internet, providers must limit who has access. Copyright restrictions mean that free access to everything produced probably will never come to the Internet. Libraries, on the other hand, freely make copyrighted material available in their print resources.
Mann makes another point that may be important in this discussion: Exclusive use of electronic sources, he says, actually may undercut students’ ability to understand lengthy works. He's not talking about pleasure reading, particularly. Just think about when you were a kid in school and told that you were assigned to read Moby Dick or A Tale of Two Cities.
“Doing keyword searches … for particular passages is simply not the same as the much more important work of actually reading and absorbing their intellectual content as connected wholes.”
Today’s students certainly are comfortable with computers, but that’s not the same as saying that they’re comfortable reading and absorbing long works on a screen. The majority of the time, Mann argues, youngsters interact with screen displays that don’t require long attention spans and require less rather than more verbal interpretative skills. Because we want students to move from simple information access skills to knowledge development and application to understanding to wisdom, technology that fosters short attention spans is both dangerous and counterproductive.
“Here is the important point,” Mann contends, “and there is no getting around it: If the higher levels of knowledge and understanding are going to be grasped, they require greater attention spans than do the lower levels of data and information.
It may be worth thinking about some of this – it goes beyond just the sense of the feel of a book in your hands.
Thanks, Gary.
I would have argued the same case against reading longer works on a "screen" until I got my Kindle with e-ink. I find the reading there no more or less tiring that reading print. And I have trouble staying awake in both formats!
Doug