So the brand-new Florida Polytechnic University has a library, but the library doesn't have any shelves or books. Instead, the school gives its students access to some 135,000 e-books, and has an arrangement with other libraries for interlibrary loans of the old-fashioned models. It's also set up an acquisition budget so that if a book the school doesn't have is requested more than twice, that e-title can be bought automatically. The "library" is a 60,000 square foot building with computer terminals and places to sit and read.
In other words, Florida Polytechnic University is the home of the world's biggest Starbucks.
These kinds of stories make me a little sad. I get that e-books are supposed to be the wave of the future, but what about technical glitches? Outages? One of the classes I teach uses a 'support' website where everything that is an extension of the textbook is housed, and several times when I've tried to access it, it's been down for maintenance.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. Maybe I'm a Luddite but I'm much more likely to read an ink and paper book or journal than electrons on a screen, especially in my "free" time.
Both glitches and some things I've read that show e-reading promotes less retention make me wonder if this is a good idea. The slight saving grace is that students can print out the material, so they do have the option of creating a document they can annotate for study purposes.
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