This article from the Boston Globe is getting plenty of attention in the archival circles and social networks that I follow. The plan is that Cushing Academy will replace its library and collection of books with e-readers and other electronic versions of texts from the Internet. Now, I love my Kindle as much as the next guy but I'm not really sure how I feel about this. It's an interesting decision, given that they are only purchasing 18 e-readers. That strikes me as a pretty low number for a school to be purchasing. Officials at Cushing point to statistics that demonstrate that one day last Spring, only 48 books were checked out and 30 of those were "children's books." What does that mean, Harry Potter?
Someone looking closely at my Library Thing account would notice that while the majority of the 600 titles are actual books, there are a percentage of titles that I possess in audio or Kindle formats. So, I'm not locked into supporting the book format and believe that it is destined to be replaced by something. And that could certainly be the Kindle format, digital rights management issues aside. But are we there yet? Probably not. The students quoted in the article don't seem to be too alarmed by this decision and actually seem to think it points towards the future. I'll defer to them - they are the ones that will feel the impact of this decision most directly. I'm certain there will be follow-up stories about how the school year goes at Cushing.
Though I will say the part of the story where the reference desk in the library is being replaced by a "$50,000 coffee shop that will include a $12,000 cappuccino machine" is most impressive. I think I really need that cappuccino machine.
1 comments:
A coffee bar? In a high school? Jeez.
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