Virtual Library
Pioneering School Library Becomes Bookless
Cushing Academy, in Ashburnham, Massa- chusetts, might be the first public or private school to trade its paper-and-ink library collection for electronic devices. Before the switchover, spot checks
showed that on some days, fewer than 30 books, or about 0.15 percent of its 20,000-book inventory, circulated. Today, the small school’s access to books is in the hundreds of thousands and growing. Staff has been added to help students navigate the electronic stacks using the library’s 65 Kindle e-readers and learn to discern, “what is valuable information or reliable from what is junk,” advises Headmas- ter James Tracy, Ph.D. Students also are downloading books on their laptops, iPhones and iPod Touch players. The school pays as little as $5 to buy an e-book, so it can access six books for the price of a traditional $30 hardcover. Response has been mixed; the high-tech library is engaging students, but highlighting and saving notes on passages, “is awful,” reports a junior at the school. Cross-ref- erencing maps and graphics is, at present, problematic. Plus, it’s hard for students to happen upon books as they do when physically walking and browsing the aisles.
Primary source: USA Today
10
www.VOFLnatural.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40