Archive for September 8th, 2009:

 Cushing Academy, a prep school in Ashburnham, Massachusetts, has decided that its traditional library is way too yesterday. As reported by the Boston Globe, Headmaster James Tracy believes paper books have become antiquated, in the way that scrolls once became obsolete with the advent of the printing press. What’s more, books take up too much space. So the 144-year-old institution is getting rid of its collection of more than 20,000 books, becoming one of the first schools in the nation to convert almost completely to digital media resources. “We see this as a natural way to shape emerging trends and optimize technology,” Tracy said.

The Cushing library will be replaced by a $500,000 “learning center” that includes three large flat-screen TVs for projecting Internet-based information ($42,000); laptop-compatible study carrels ($20,000); and 18 electronic readers from Amazon and Sony ($10,000). Learning will also be facilitated by a $50,000 coffee shop (to be built in the spot where that old dinosaur, the reference desk, used to be) featuring a $12,000 espresso machine.

Outcry is not just from bibliophiles. Even many Kindle enthusiasts and other techy types are chagrined by the sweeping nature of the Cushing decision, wondering why the school could not have struck a balance between books and new media.

Notable among those who see the book purge as “a tremendous loss for students” is William Powers, media critic for the National Journal and author of “Hamlet’s Blackberry: Why Paper is Eternal” (a 75-page position paper written in 2006, when Powers was a fellow at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy).  In it he argues that paper is not just a vessel for content, or an old human habit, but rather a sophisticated technology that fosters a cognitive reading experience not available through electronic media. According to Powers,

There are modes of learning and thinking that at the moment are only available from actual books. There is a kind of deep-dive, meditative reading that’s almost impossible to do on a screen. Without books, students are more likely to do the grazing or quick reading that screens enable, rather than be by themselves with the author’s ideas.

I’m inclined to agree, but then I think you can hear music better on vinyl, too—while you sit on the couch admiring the artwork on the gatefold cover.

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