The Disappearance of Books from School Libraries

The Room for Debate blog at the New York Times featured a very interesting discussion this week about the choice that Cushing Academy recently made to dispense with all the books in their library. If you didn't hear, the school recently made the choice to get rid of the books in their collection [mostly donating them to community organizations]. They're now using the space for a 'learning center' that focuses primarily on electronic resources.


The Times piece features a lot of great opinions, including those of Nicholas Carr, whose Rough Type blog is highly recommended. Without giving away what others have said on this subject, we would like to add a few comments.

Our culture tends to prioritize choices between opposing forces. In doing so, we often create false dilemmas. Books and the Internet are not opposing forces, just as poetry and technology are not opposing forces. There is no reason to give one preference over the other: both can exist harmoniously.

Cushing Academy is eager to help their students transition well into 21st Century adulthood. That's a noble pursuit, and one that requires innovation. If they decided their money was better spent on electronic resources rather than updating their book collection, there is no problem with that. But why dispense with the old books?

Alexander Coyle, the chair of the history department at Cushing academy, pondered as much in the original Boston Globe article:

A lot us are wondering how this changes the dignity of the library, and why we can’t move to increase digital resources while keeping the books.

There's nothing wrong with old books, certainly, and even if they're outdated you can glean quite a lot from them if you know how to read critically. No one understands that better than a history teacher.

At this blog, we're explicitly in favor of combining forces that at first might seem as if they oppose one another. This seems like a case in which all parties need to take a close look at all sides of their argument. Books don't stop us from consuming digital content, and digital content doesn't preclude us from getting quite a lot out of books.

You can find the NY Times debate on the subject here. We'd love to hear what you think about this issue. Feel free to comment below, or contact us via Twitter, Facebook, or Google Buzz.