Welcome to the library. Say goodbye to the books.

[Liz Keating]

....reads the headline in the Boston Globe this week! Click HERE to read the full story of the Cushing Academy's new library.

[Rae Ciciora]

Wow, that's a drastic step!! I love the feel of books, the weight of it, the texture of the pages, the smell, and the physical turning of the pages. I would really miss that in a library.

[Mary Sileo]

I've been thinking about this change from "library" to "learning commons" and "books" to "Kindles" a lot lately. I want to be open to the change.....see the good it has to offer.....and I do. My husband reads certain books on his iPhone which has a Kindle app. There is a lot of benefit in that for him as a business person. He can efficiently store excerpts from different books without creating a "file". On the other hand, I have a real adversity to people who want to go to the extremes just because "it is the future"......they tend to throw out the baby with the bath water.....not thinking of the benefits and value that the "old ways" still have for us. I want to have discussions on this topic with truly thoughtful people. People who can still see the benefits of books (unlike the school in this article) as well as the advantages of the new technology.

Books are some of the artifacts of our life (such as we still put photos in frames even though they are easily stored digitally on the computer) as well as a source of communal learning (I truly see the benefit of teachers reading books aloud to an entire group and slowly showing them the illustrations.....and for Kindergartners, BIG books). This all concerns me. I think we can strike a balance......a thoughtful balance......on the benefits we get from the two different eras of information access. But, honestly, this has become a personal question for me. Will most libraries be completely bookless in 5 years or is it truly a small, radical bunch that is seeing the answer as black and white? It's personal because I don't want to keep spending money at UCD if my only choice is going to be working in a bookless library. I don't. I want balance.....balance that is derived from thoughtful educators.

[Nancy Nebeker]

The Cushing Academy move to get rid of all the books seems ludicrous at first and second blush. To say that it is premature is an understatement when you consider the number of sources that have yet to be digitized. While I am excited to embrace the new technology available to disseminate information I don't see it being a choice of one or the other. The printed word, not the virtual printed word but the ink and paper kind, will remain a part of the enormous resource base for information, enlightenment and instruction that we will continue to use in schools for years to come. I find it thrilling to live in this time of transition when so much is available. It seems to me this is the time to amass all the tools we have to educate our students and as far as I can see books are a still vital part of the arsenal.