A School Abolishes Books

I'd go to the public library in that case.

"When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books."

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I, for one, still love a good scroll. If that makes me a dinosaur, so be it.

I think this is nonsense, by the way.

Prep school headmasters are always level headed and contemporary.

Always.

(Always.)

And how about books that aren't available on kindle?

I have to say this...

Wait for it...

Where the reference desk was, they are building a $50,000 coffee shop that will include a $12,000 cappuccino machine.

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Yes. That's what kids need. Coffee. And so someone who went to school to work at a library now has to serve fucking coffee????

It's the end of the G-D world when people like this guy get in charge. "Abolish the old! Bring in the new! And put a god forsaken flipping Starbucks there, so we can overcharge for shitty cappuccinos!"

I hope the rest of the world doesn't follow suit; I'm going for a library sciences degree

Okay, now I'm done.

Well, technically the school isn't abolishing "books" (in the sense of a "printed or written work"), just books on paper. I still think it's silliness, but there's a chance that this could eventually be the future...

What a twit.

Jcomp said:

Well, technically the school isn't abolishing "books" (in the sense of a "printed or written work"), just books on paper. I still think it's silliness, but there's a chance that this could eventually be the future...

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True, I think it is the future, you're right. But this guy's taking too much power in his own hands and forcing a change that hasn't happened yet. These kids will likely never visit a library--which part of going to the library is to be social and get into your community and browse the shelves, take part in library activities (like read-a-thons, etc.) This guy isn't just abolishing text in his school, he's, in a way, abolishing the idea of libraries.

And he says it isn't like Bradbury or anything, but come on. He's buying huge flat screen TVs to disseminate information? All you need is to put a drugged out Mildred on the couch for kids to wander in on and you'll be right there. It's like he accepts some kind of future where kids are blocked off from certain experiences.

The fucking douche probably just learned what an "e-reader" is, and like some crazed relic with no real concept of what the current industry or world of literature is, started calling shots. That's what power does to a person.

Oh, my. They're replacing all the books in the library with three big screens and 18 e-readers. Eighteen. That's supposed to give all their students "access to millions of works of literature..."

NOT the way to digitize a library.

So they are getting rid of all the books and replacing them with computers (which most library's have anyway) and 18 kindles!!! 18!

What happens if more then 20 kids want to read a book at the same time?

Lol you beat me too it sonya

I hope he won't be too surprise when parents start pulling their kids from that school. I, for one, am not ready to send my kids to a school that doesn't have books in its library. The sea change might happen in the future, but it hasn't happened yet and you can bet the parents aren't ready for it.

This. Is. SACRILEGE.

!!

He can send those old paper books to me. I'll take good care of them, until the firemen come.

It is interesting that there does not seem to be a move to fire the guy, yet. Who knows, it may take a year or two before it will become clear that the students are even less literate than most high school graduates.

I dunno, I think some people might be overreacting a bit. It is indeed not like Bradbury or Farenheit 451. And I love traditional books and do believe that the e-volution of books is oversold and quite a ways off yet. I also think this plan is short-sighted and going to cause some difficulties for this school. But it's just in this one relatively tiny pocket of the universe, where most likely exist other libraries. It's just a good old fashioned bad idea, not some diabolical attack on mankind.

Jcomp said:

I dunno, I think some people might be overreacting a bit. It is indeed not like Bradbury or Farenheit 451. And I love traditional books and do believe that the e-volution of books is oversold and quite a ways off yet. I also think this plan is short-sighted and going to cause some difficulties for this school. But it's just in this one relatively tiny pocket of the universe, where most likely exist other libraries. It's just a good old fashioned bad idea, not some diabolical attack on mankind.

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Yeah, but... they're BOOKS. Haha.

Also, school is what introduced me to books as a child, and I doubt I'd have got too excited about them if I had to queue up for one of the eighteen e-readers to access them. The fact that I could hold them and turn the pages was all part of the experience. It feels like the headmaster is making it HARDER for children/teenagers to get to books (there's a bigger selection, yeah, but I'm betting that you have to stay in school to access it and nobody would bother). It's such a shame.

There was a thread about this a while back. I think it was in round table. The library wasn't that large to begin with, and they had stats that showed the students hardly used it.

MM

You know what? Some of my best memories are libraries. Reading, studying, working on projects with friends, writing, internet surfing, sleeping occasionally between classes in college...

Some of that can still be done in their new "library" but what the hell is a library without any books? The smell of books when you walk in...I think it's sad. I don't like it.

Marketing ploy on part of the school.

/thread

MaryMumsy said:

There was a thread about this a while back. I think it was in round table. The library wasn't that large to begin with, and they had stats that showed the students hardly used it.

MM

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That is at least partly right. The library had only 20,000 volumes, which is not all that many; but that is enough for a good basic library.

James81 said:

Marketing ploy on part of the school.

/thread

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Pretty poor one IMHO -- My daughter would be out of that school with the books, preferably with a couple tucked under her arms. I'm all for e-books but there are plenty of worthwhile books that are not digitized and the books that are digitized are not indexed and cataloged well enough to do without the hard copy library both for research and for browsing.

If it's a private school, go for it! The market will tell them if they screwed up.