Cushing Academy has all the hallmarks of a New England prep school, with one exception.
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“When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books,’’ said James Tracy, headmaster of Cushing and chief promoter of the bookless campus. “This isn’t ‘Fahrenheit 451’ [the 1953 Ray Bradbury novel in which books are banned]. We’re not discouraging students from reading. We see this as a natural way to shape emerging trends and optimize technology.’’
As the folks on engadget say "unless there are only 18 students at Cushing Academy, we're pretty sure the e-reader supply is going to come up short." The book is at the height of information technology, not the bottom, and I will tell you why. The book never needs an upgrade,it is extremely inexpensive making it available to the poorest of the poor and the rich alike, the only energy source required to read it is sunlight, and the only knowledge one needs to attain to decode it's contents is reading.
Now, I'm all for technology, especially when you're referring to information that is updated on a daily basis like reference information found in encyclopedias, but that kind of information is not free and requires a subscription. It's also easily controlled or changed depending on who is reviewing and posting the information, the interest groups the information supports or denounces. Once a book is published it can only disappear if it's burned, all the e-readers need to do is catch a virus or miss an upgrade and it's useless. The entire move seems ridiculous.
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.
This is a prep school so I guess the charge of elitism is a cheap shot, but in this case they deserve it, and I use that term with a focus on being out of touch with reality. I honestly doubt kids are going to curl up with Twilight or even Anna Karenina at a coffee shop with their e-reader.
6 comments:
This type of thinking is what bothers/scares me. As an elementary media specialist and PT college librarian, I have come across more and more people who question the purpose of a library/librarian 'when we can get any info we need from the internet' only to then ask for assistance with finding info for a paper. I totally agree with you comments.
...love your blog!
Thanks!
I think librarians, in general, need to be a bit more vocal!
With all due respect, if librarians keep clinging to print books, they will do so at their own peril. If they adapt, they will be more important than ever (did you know that Jim Tracy is actually increasing the library staff?). This development has already occurred at the college and graduate level. Book lovers should celebrate that it being promulgated at the secondary level by someone like Jim Tracy rather than an uneducated techno-jerk. He is one of your own.
@ Anon. Don't get me wrong I get the very real need and value of textbook conversion to e-books. They can be updated easily and teachers have more freedom to use journal articles that can be downloaded instead of printed.
In this the e-book has the advantage, but when you're talking about reading literature or fiction I have to disagree and Free Voluntary Reading will take an even bigger dive than it already has among young readers if the push is towards complete e-book conversion.
From a completely practical standpoint if it isn't fun and easy kids won't do it and their reading skills suffer. Reading fiction on an e-book that's expensive and in constant need of charging and can be stolen (stick-up kids don't usually steal books in the hood) is not ideal.
This is the next step. Closing public libraries due to lack of funding.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6612188.html
Once upon a time when books were first invented, only the wealthiest and most politically powerful people could afford to own them. The rest of the population remained uninformed and mostly illiterate. What is happening right now today is simply a kind of ironic fantasy sci-fi deconstruction of the past. As more and more people like Mr. Tracy become the management norm and as everything related to technology gets cheaper and cheaper, eventually everyone, including the people who sleep in the park, will access the web for every piece of info they need. Think MAX HEADROOM, here. Never saw that series? Better rent it from your library. But I digress. A sad and scary prediction is where I am going with this. I am 57. I am a librarian. I predict that when I am, say...80, Mr. Tracy's "vision" will be complete. Printed books on paper will be no more. Once again, only the wealthiest among us will have the resources to own, collect, and preserve books, just as it was when books were first invented. Only the elite and those who control what they want us to know and believe, only those individuals will (once again) have the luxury and option of owning and controlling the distribution of physical books. The intellects and abilities of my children's children's children will be simple cloned shadows of what in the past was known as intelligence and reason. Everything the children of the future are taught will come from one carefully arranged, easy to access, edited, censored source, filled with pre-selected materials, beliefs, and resources. Children will know nothing else, and they will absorb it all like breathing. Personal choice on any level will be considered subversive. Now, there's a screenplay for you, just waiting to happen. Run with it, while you still can. Oh, and by the way: this month is National Banned Books Month. Read one and weep.
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