This would appear to be a proactive attempt to meet the needs of the very tech savvy students entering college today. It provides them with the electronic resources they prefer and keeps the library as a place for them to study and socialize. Combined with specialized librarians and IT staff the facility appears to be designed to meet the needs of the 21st Century student. Books are gone, yet, just not at this one library on the campus. However it should also be mentioned that the University has join the Google effort to digitize all of their books.
I have been a book lover all my life but recently I purchased a Kindle and I have to say it is wonderful. Except for the fact that not everything is available yet in Kindle format I would switch completely. Two main reasons are “zero eyestrain” and no dusting required.
3 comments:
What an interesting change! It sounds like it really served the needs of the student community. I have to admit, though, that I'm not exactly familiar with the term "learning commons." I'm reading it a lot lately, and I assume it means a fancy computer lab?
I was really amazed when I read your first post about removing the books, but it really makes sense, especially at such a large university and one that has so many other libraries on campus. I think the concept might meet more resistance at a smaller college with fewer libraries. At UT, I think the group study spaces with computer facilities will better meet the needs of that user population. And this concept would be something they could study in their library and information science program.
Removing books from this particular library was probably based on space and users' needs. Since students have moved toward online information access, storing books and retrieving them only when needed makes sense in order to provide better use of the space. Since UTAustin has joined Google in the digitization of their collection, it completely makes sense not to have to provide the printed items, especially at university such as UT, since students are more than likely only using electronic media and there are more libraries in which printed items are housed.
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