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College Libraries Without Books 465
Groo writes to tell us CBS News is reporting that books are a thing of the past at a University of Texas library this fall. The University will be converting the library to a 'social gathering place more akin to a coffeehouse.' This push is done in response to the increasing use of online research as a part of undergraduate studies. According to the article the missing books will be replaced by "colorful overstuffed chairs for lounging, barstools for people watching, and booths for group work. In addition to almost 250 desktop computers, there will be 75 laptops available for checkout, wireless Internet access, computer labs, software suites, a multimedia studio, a computer help desk and repair shop, and a cafe."
bad move. (Score:5, Insightful)
For shame, UT - a bad start onto a dangerous slippery slope.
Re:bad move. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:bad move. (Score:5, Informative)
True, for some reason I absoloutely hate to read long texts on a computer screen. It's fine for short PDF files but as soon as I am dealing with a 50+ pages I like having an oldfashioned paper book in my hands rather than sitting in front of a desktop computer or even a laptop which at least is protable. Even computer printouts are inferior to a book since the book will usually be more compact.
Try telling us why (Score:2)
I honestly don't like reading from a PDA screen, but its a lot lighter than carrying books around.
Re:Try telling us why (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the UI would be inferior mainly because flipping through pages with my fingers will always be more convenient than a search box (that needs either a stylus or keyboard to work) or previous/next buttons that go one page at a time.
A bookmarks UI will either need screen space or an extra step to access, as opposed to just grabbing and flipping the pages. Have you ever held your fingers between pages at a few spots in a book and flipped back and forth?
How about comparing/referenceing multiple pages from the same or multiple books?
Also, it's always nice to have a feel for where you are in a book, and I don't think a picture or number can convey that as well as physical pages.
Sure, it would be nice to have a thin letter sized tablet to carry on the subway for reading, and I think it would certainly add some useful features (automatic updating of news, searching and highlighting, etc), but I can think of many situations where I would be more comfortable with real books.
So, you're telling (Score:4, Interesting)
My anedocte (it's probably the 2nd time I posted this):
I am a public employee, and I had to pass a rather difficult test to get my job (500 candidates, 5 openings, I was #3). And I studied all of the test's subjects (civil law, constitutional law, legislative process, administrative law) off a Palm III's screen -- translated all texts and codelaw into HTML and plucker'ed them: autoscroll was my friend. With some smart indexing and x-refing. Now, if I was to carry all this with me (I studied a lot while commuting) I would have to carry appoximately 20kg of books, instead of 200g in my pocket. And I obviously have no problem reading from a screen.
Re:So, you're telling (Score:4, Insightful)
I finished my degree while taking public transit to work. I read one book at a time and took notes of what I needed to cross-reference when I got home.
Paper I think is just a holdover from generations who have learned from paper. It's still superior in many ways than electronic text. Those who are used to paper are used to learning without being able to instantly cross-reference an enormous library, but are used to no compromises in the quality of the print and where they choose to read.
Re:Try telling us why (Score:5, Insightful)
Man, and you thought Americans were undereducated and brainwashed before, wait till this takes off!
And it's starting in Texas, how poetic.
Re:Try telling us why (Score:5, Insightful)
How many of these students will print out reams of paper that they would not have done if they had the book infront of them?
Re:Try telling us why (Score:3, Interesting)
How many of these students will print out reams of paper that they would not have done if they had the book infront of them?
At work we kill lots of trees to print out tech manuals and product manuals that are sent to us electronically.
At school I did the same thing, especially with homework assignments. The school wanted all the professors to start sending out homework assignm
Paper? why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Moving into an apartment led me to reduce paper as much as possible. While reading paper is nicer (mostly because that's what we grew up with), I have no qualms about reading long texts online. The tradeoff favors a paperless existance.
That said, I do have about 3000 books in storage, hopefully destined for a dedicate personal library when I find a new house. Online text is great for speed and portability
The library should digitize all its books
Books are a superior technology! (Score:5, Interesting)
While technologies like digital ink, which is an absorptive display that doesn't consume power unless you're changing the text, may offer a superior technology to books in the future, the book is a much better technology than current computers for reading large amounts of text.
Re:bad move. (Score:2)
Re:bad move. (Score:5, Informative)
The University of Texas "Undergraduate Library" has an interesting history - basically, the library was developed to allow undergraduates to browse stacks - before then, only graduates could do so - undergraduates had to use the card catalog to find exactly the book they wanted and give it to the librarian.
This was in the 1950s-1960s.
But since then, almost every library is open to every student - making an "undergraduate library" a bit of a redundancy. Already, the "Undergraduate Library" was not the main library on campus - that honor went to the Perry-Castaneda Library a blocks south. (It's a Biiiig campus)
That's where all 90,000 books will go.
It's actually a better deal - instead of looking in the directory at the PCL and finding out that the book you want is at the OTHER library (something that's happened quite a bit to me!) the books will be in one place. Already the "Undergraduate Library" - or as it's now known, the Flawn Academic Center, was used primarily as study-group area (because it had a big lobby) the housing of the campus computer store, and one of the largest computer labs on campus.
So, to recap: No books will be thrown out, they'll be put where they ought to be - with the other books, in the other, main library on campus. This is a win-win.
from library to... what? (Score:2, Interesting)
Internet coffee would suit better.
Re:bad move. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:bad move. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like a minor restructuring of the library system blown out of all proportion because one building that formerly held books doesn't any more.
Re:bad move. (Score:5, Informative)
Even in 1996, the first floor was magazines and study area, the second floor meeting rooms and computer lab, the top floor was an art gallery and ball room! Not much room for books in the first place.
Re:bad move. (Score:4, Informative)
However, this has gotten people to talking about the differences between gathering info on a computer and gathering info from books. I have to point out that regardless of which method is "better," the vast majority of the books in question are simply not available for free "checkout" in electronic form. Project Guttenburg is awesome and would be my first stop for classics, but it would be a pretty big mistake to think 20th and 21st century authors are irrelivant.
Until students can get a huge cross-section of copyrighted authors available to them online, we have to keep the print libraries.
TW
Re:bad move. (Score:5, Insightful)
These libraries are part of an evolution - think back to card catalogues, shelves full of scrolls perhaps before that - written language itself is not so old in the scope of human history.
For scientific research I find the online resources to be a tremendous improvement. If I read a paper and want to find referenced article I can click a link and have it immediately - rather than climbing three floors in the stacks. I can go through a lot more information, sorting and sifting through the relevant items much more effectively online compared with doing it on foot in the library... I still do love the smell of all those books though...
Re:bad move. (Score:2)
I can imagine a flex office works with simpe repetitive tasks with a central database such as insurance companies but the average professor here still has 4 bookshelves in his roo
Re:bad move. (Score:2)
Wow, it's extremely easy to take notes on ANY computer (IMO much easier then it is with paper, I've been paperless for 2 years now and I haven't looked back at all). And thanks to eReader, it's extremely easy to highlight.
Re:bad move. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:bad move. (Score:2)
And maybe that's why they did it: They got tired of people like you highlighting, marking-up, and taking notes on THEIR books.
Re:bad move. (Score:2)
What if bookshops are behind this? (Score:4, Insightful)
But what if the reason for reducing libraries, isn't to shift towards e-learning, but instead pressure from book SHOPS?
If I were an amoral university principal - or even a moral principal at an underfunded university - I'd take nice fat cheques from the bookshops and reduce the libraries.
A good on-campus bookshop and a laptop sales/repair outlet could really clean up in a university with insufficient library facilities.
Reading on the john (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Reading on the john (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Reading on the john (Score:2)
Re:Reading on the john (Score:2)
I guess you don't read many library books.
Re:Neither does the sun (Score:2)
Re:Neither does the sun (Score:4, Funny)
That's okay... when we run out of oil, just think of all the books we'll have available to burn.
Re:I disagree with the information nazis. (Score:4, Insightful)
Way to go. You've managed to say the stupidest thing I've heard in days.
You're "argument", if it can be called that, could just as well be used to argue for black people moving back to Africa (bye bye karma :), everyone in the U.S. believing in God, and any other majority totalling trumping the minority. And guess what? It'd still be a stupid argument in any of those cases.
It has nothing to do with the majority of people. The majority of people will never step foot into a physics laboratory. But most schools still have one. Strange, huh?
It also has nothing to do with being cool. If there was ever a time when the library was the cool place to hang out, I haven't heard of it.
Just because you, and some people you know, don't find libraries useful, doesn't mean universities and colleges should get rid of them for everyone. There's still a large number of people, even if they're a minority) who prefer reading books to reading online. I'm thinking about going to graduate school, and not having a traditional library would rule out a school immediately, no questions asks.
Re:I disagree with the information nazis. (Score:2)
I live close to several good universities (in so. Cal) and make use of their libraries. The library doesn't have to be on your campus
Re:I disagree with the information nazis. (Score:3, Funny)
No, but they were always good places to make out, and for the same reason - no people (and comfortable furniture
Re:I disagree with the information nazis. (Score:3, Interesting)
Books aren't a collection of highlights, they're (potentially) multi-page, often multi-hundred-page long works. Maybe you;re able to read somethng that long on a screen comfortably and efficiently, I can't.
The library just isn't as cool as it once was simply because no one wants books anymore. We outnumber folks like you
This is a fucking UNIVERSITY. If university students can't read an entire book except in blipvert fragments, it's goodbye to civilisation as we know it.
Oh look, there goes all the learning resource (Score:2, Interesting)
If not it seems like a move to effectively rob students of necessary learning resources.
Surely people wanting to study in a library are more interested in access to good materials than in a coffeeshop environment which they can get elsewhere easily.
Then again, no doubt the university will make a shed load of money from the coffee, etc.
RTFA? (Score:5, Informative)
The books were just moved to other libraries on campus.
From TFA:
"This summer, 90,000 volumes were transferred to other collections in the campus's massive library system."
You know (Score:3, Interesting)
For tech subjects.
Get into the real world, of detailed data though -- suddenly, all the detailed data is in the literature. We must find a way to expose that data to the new mechanisms of search -- searching indices of books in the Dewey Decimal System is over, and it's now a matter of factual extinction vs. getting the data out there.
Re:You know (Score:5, Interesting)
To get access to it you'll have to have an account at an academic library though.
searching (Score:2)
Well put, but I'll even go one further. All the detailed date is in literature (books) and peer reviewed journals. That's one of the biggest problems. Lots of those journals with the latest research DO have websites that contain their articles, but the websites usually partially or fully restrict access to their information....they want paying customers (the people and organizations who already hav
Re:What secret data? (Score:2)
I don't use libraries much though, because at least the public ones around here have absolutely no deep technical books, only glorified kid's books i.e. "My first book on Rockets". I just buy the aerospace books recommended by others from Amazon.
Re:What secret data? (Score:4, Interesting)
Change for the better (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Change for the better (Score:5, Informative)
And ofcourse ... (Score:2)
He, actually since libraries usually have pretty good locations in cities, maybe this should be done to every library. Let me make some phonecalls to arrange it....
And whats replacing it? (Score:2, Redundant)
So, is it going to be replaced with a online library? Are they going to let students rely on Wikipedia for reference? what about all them books that are too old and fragile to be scanned. Seems like a very short sighted decision to me.
Re:And whats replacing it? (Score:2, Insightful)
If anything, it IS the old and fragile books that most desperately need to be digitized to be preserved and given a wider audience.
Re:And whats replacing it? (Score:2)
You would be suprised to see what Liverpool University has open access to...hence why i said it. Maybe i made too much of a blanket assumption there
The future is now (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, if you try to tell people about this, they get all confused due to that recent documentary (which stole the name).
Re:The future is now (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, if you try to tell people about this, they get all confused due to that recent documentary (which stole the name).
That is why nothing can beat a book. No matter what story is told, the book is printed, and it will NOT change. You can't just take a bottle of white out and a pen and make a change. If you want to know what Lenin thought, you can find his words printed on paper. Somewhere, on a bookshelf, is a copy of his works. No matter how hard government tries to take away those books, they are out there, in attics, in basements, in places people forgot about.
If something is on electronic format, how long until there are hacks, and patches, and confusion, and chaos?
Student #1:"But Professor, my book said Iraq did have WMD".
Student #2:"Professor, my book was hacked, it says there are no WMD and that Halliburton made a billion dollars."
Professor: "Those damn hackers! This is why we need another guantanamo."
This is more like 1984 than Fahrenhite 451. Fahrenhite 451 was about government kicking in doors and burning books. That will never happen as long as the USA has the 2nd Amendment. But what is more likely to happen is 1984, where government changes facts. What is told today as fact is told tomorrow as fiction.
That is why it is so alarming that a PUBLIC library would decide to get rid of books.
I hope the first hack is not to change the electronic database to say the 2nd Amendment gaurentees the right to 2 dollars an hour employment.
Re:The future is the same is the past (Score:3, Insightful)
That's why I have trouble with old books such as the bible. Before it was published in print, it was told by word of mouth. As we all know, people tend to change things with each itteration to their own likings. Plus, there was those times where pretty much only those in power and religious leaders could actually read. During those times, who's to say they didn't get changed yet again to suit those
Ray Bradbury? (Score:2)
Sad =( (Score:3, Interesting)
Academics? what...? (Score:2, Interesting)
No books? (Score:4, Insightful)
Am I the only one bothered by this? Although the internet is very useful for finding information quickly, I wouldn't go to the scale of turning a library into a social setting by removing books and making it internet-oriented; books are essential, and I find it much more comfortable to read a book in a chair rather than onscreen at my computer on a website configured in an awkward way that makes it difficult to read.
Constantly printing material is rather annoying, in my opinion, and I couldn't stand it at my High School. We were doing something similar - a Virtual Library it was called - and there were only two rows of books. Not many people used the library. As internet-oriented as I am, I still went to the Public Library instead of that useless Virtual Library.
Who knows, though. Only time will tell, but I'm getting the feeling it isn't a good thing.
Re:No books? (Score:2)
Well, I don't. I read at least 200 pages from screen each and every day. And I have a very good experience [slashdot.org] with reading codelaw and textbooks from a palmtop.
Actually, I've been wanting to buy one of those [palm.com], but they are somewh
Re:Uh (Score:2)
With considerable ease, actually.
*grabs book from shelf*
Ah yes, this 860+ page O'Reilly book "Programming Python". Not exactly difficult to read conmfortably, as an example.
"Trust me I know from experience, I have never been able to finish a 500 page book."
Really? It's easy. Trust me. I've read several books each with more than 1,000 pages, and each one I managed to finish. Maybe you just suffer from a very short attention span?
No no no... (Score:4, Insightful)
Clearly you are not a student (Score:2)
Re:Clearly you are not a student (Score:2)
I have checked out a few books in my time here, but the vast bulk of my reading is pulled out of citeseer or another appropriate resource.
Re:Clearly you are not a student (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Clearly you are not a student (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No no no... (Score:2)
that's where you're wrong.
speaking as a programmer for a research university's library, i can say there is more and more relevant material online. particularly in the sciences, most current research is done using pre-publication drafts obtained from colleagues. by the time it's printed it's out of date.
more to the point, this article is talking about a
Re:Prove your words., (Score:4, Insightful)
How does a library ever compare to the global noosphere?
They're different brands of information. Yes, the internet is slowly absorbing it all. Yes, there's a lot of stuff there.
But it's easy to think you have all the information because there's a whole lot of stuff out there on the web and you don't, by definition, see what's missing. Don't be so quick to totally dismiss the last three hundred years of work at writing things down. Just because they didn't have the internet doesn't mean they weren't just as smart -- and often awful smarter -- than us. Presentism is a dangerous thing.
Yes, eventually everything will be web-accessable. Yes, libraries will become obsolete. But there is a tre-MENDOUS amount of material not yet there. And much more importantly, information often isn't available online with the context, the background, the solidity, and the completeness of a long book by a single author who's an expert on the subject, a book vetted by peers. And the relative permanence of books allows them to be double and triple-checked for accuracy and relevence. When I want to learn a subject (computer-related fields are sort of an exception here), I may look at websites to get an overview, but mostly I look for recommended books on the subject.
There's a whole lot more to transferring information than simply dumping facts in a pile, and books are a wonderful tool for organizing them. They are guarenteed to have voice, coherence, grammatical standards, and the promise that someone has spent significant time and work putting the information together.
This will all change eventually. But it hasn't near changed yet.
Re:Prove your words., (Score:2)
Online research is good and all... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, until a university scans all of its book collection for online perusal, this is a step in the wrong direction.
WTF (Score:2, Interesting)
we also have 4 stories of books above that.
you're telling me a cal state school has a bigger library than UT?
Much ado about (practically) NOTHING (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/about/news/fac.html [utexas.edu]
Even though the undergraduate library apparently had 90,000 volumes there, NO ONE I KNOW used it as an actual-book library. Practically all the useful real books are at the main campus library (Perry-Castaneda), not the UGL. First floor of the UGL had magazines. Second floor had a pretty large and useful computer lab. Third floor had mostly media for checkout (CDs, DVDs, etc.). There were some shelves of books there, but very, VERY rarely did I ever need one of them. The fourth floor was cordoned off and had some art pieces in storage that would go to the Ransom Center elsewhere on campus.
It makes a lot of sense to move those few volumes that were actually at the UGL to the other libraries. This creates a lot more room at the UGL/FAC for study areas, which were pretty lacking.
So, while the blaring headlines make it sound like a big deal, from the point-of-view of a UT student (going on five years now and counting, woo hoo), this isn't that big of a deal.
I doubt they are tossing out the old books (Score:2, Interesting)
Information is not a static thing, and the progress from static books to dynamic online resources is a reaction to that. However, there is still value in understanding what people believed back before the "curent truth" was understood. Spontaneous Generation, a defunct theory of abiogenesis, was once the
coverups? hah (Score:2, Interesting)
its sad that they are proclaiming that this was the plan all along though
there were protests all over campus last semester to keep the library the way it was.
the large library (the one that most people used if they were using books) is still there.
to tell you the truth i didnt know a single person who used the UGL, so maybe this will end up being a nice fix to something that could have been just bulldozed instead.
*shrug*
i get back to campus in 3 days, so i g
Don't get carried away (Score:2, Interesting)
Misleading store title (Score:2)
Misleading Headline. . . and article (Score:5, Informative)
See, back in the Bad Old Days, undergrads were sort of like roaches. You wanted them out of sight, and you certainly didn't want them anywhere important. So they weren't permitted in the stacks at university libraries. Instead, you filled out a form and gave it to a librarian, and they brought you the book you requested. Fill out the form wrong and get the wrong book? Fill out another form. All this to prevent those scalliwag undergrads from mussing the stacks.
In the 50's, Harvard had what was (at the time) a revolutionary idea: don't just keep undergrads out of the stacks- quarantine them! They built Lamont library, the nations first undergraduate library. The shelves were filled with the sort of intro-level books on topics that undergrads were likely to research for their classes. There was a recreational reading collection, and rooms for group study. The undergrads got to browse the books and had a place to gather. The grad school and departmental libraries didn't have to interact with undergrads. Everyone was happy.
Since those heady days, things have changed a bit. Many university systems have replaced cantankerous old librarians and card catalogues with computer-indexed search systems, and English majors employed part-time to damage the bar code scanner. Many schools have open stacks now, and have opened all their libraries to undergraduates. Furthermore, the growth of collections means that more and more a dedicated undergraduate library can't house all the books that an undergrad might need. Now you have your collection divided between the grab-bag of books in the undergrad collection, the in-depth books in the departmental or grad school collection, and the overflow books available by request from the warehouse featured in "Raiders of the Lost Arc".
In such a situation, some schools (apparently such as UT) have found that the undergrad library is more of a bother than a help as a library. Undergrads still go there to study, but increasingly the books that they want are in other parts of the library system; for books that might be useful to both undergraduates and grad students and faculty, you either have to duplicate efforts or force grads and faculty to wander over to the undergrad library. So there's a logical solution: convert the undergrad library to what it really is- a student center for undergrads, oriented somewhat around studying and writing papers- and move the books back into the general library system, which everyone is already using anyway.
This has little or nothing to do with "taking the books out of libraries" as near as I can tell. UT will still have its giant collection of real books that you can check out and read when the power goes out, or on a plane for 12 hours, or in the bathroom without your eyes bleeding and falling out of your head. They will continue to buy new books as they are published, and maintain the old collection. No need to push the bibliophile panic button just yet.
Re:Misleading Headline. . . and article (Score:2, Funny)
Dude, you mean I can check out the Arc of the Covenant for a couple of weeks? The boys at Gamma Phi Kappa are gonna be spun when I show them this text over a bong hit.
Re:Misleading Headline. . . and article (Score:2)
This is what they've done here, they've made a place where you can do that, that is designed for the purpose, it's likely to be well lit, and reasonably comfortable a
Re:Misleading Headline. . . and article (Score:2)
What's wrong with you people? (Score:4, Insightful)
It is true that books no longer play the role they used to in higher learning. As a PhD student, 75% of my reading is journal articles, accessed online from school or by connecting through a VPN. Being able to search out and access this material electronically is a MASSIVE time saver. Sure as hell beats photocopying articles in the library.
Hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe a little bit of both? (Score:2, Insightful)
You could still sit down and read the book in a nice comfy chair, but you could also take the CD with you when you go somewhere. You would also have the advantage of using the CD as a reference once you're done reading. You could also
Did you really spend much time in the library soci (Score:2)
Re:Did you really spend much time in the library s (Score:2)
Basically, people got sucked into an open source game with a very flat learning curve and complex teamplay by going to labs and seeing people playing it during work breaks and late at night (despite a NO GAMES) policy that was spottily enforced by the "web trolls". A lot of the cultural aspects of the CSUA [berkeley.edu], a CS student social organization, als
The books are being moved. Not replaced. (Score:5, Informative)
Moving the books to other libraries and dedicating the space to student gatherings/ studies is not that bad of a thing. Considering that there seems to be a need of group study areas, this might help with that.
We already have computer labs, laptops for check out, and wifi in there. So really, the main addition are the colorful chairs.
Re:The books are being moved. Not replaced. (Score:2)
Thanks for making it clear what is really going on. It sounds like a good idea to me. From my subjective observation of the Hancock Library [anu.edu.au] about 90% of student activity is dedicated to using the computers to research articles, run programs and writeup assignments.
The books and journals are priceless, but are not that heavily used. Most essays reference recent artilces that are mostly online. I personally use books or old journal articles for historical context in the Introduction. It is great to have acc
Coffeehouse? Coffeeshop! (Score:2)
This would be a nice addition (Score:2, Insightful)
These people are not really adding a library, but converting one into a study building and moving the books elsewhere. Come finals, it's not as easy as you'd think to find places to study the way you'd like. I need a table enough for me and perhaps 3 other study partners, and freedom to audibly discuss/teach each other
Research vs. reading (Score:2, Interesting)
There a two different usage patterns concerning books in my humble opinion.
Research, where I really enjoy beeing able to full-text search through thousands of (e.g.) pdfs and online information (through spinweb etc.)
Reading a book I much prefer if it is for entertainment or if I have to dig deep into a subject. There I don't need full-text search and a book has no other fancy features that distract my attention.
What about the interface? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would never buy an encylopedia now that I've got web access. I wouldn't buy a research paper either. The reason is that I only want to use a small fraction and I'll need it for 20 minutes whilst I extract the bit I need and plagerise it mercilessly
Its these circumstances when I want a tablet like device sitting next to my PC. Its dimesions should be somewhere between A5 and A4 notepad and weigh about the same (200g). The interface should be exactly the same as the iPod. A simple menu for selecting the book you want, and a scroll wheel for flicking through the pages. Left and right buttons to move back and forth through individual pages. There should be a stylus, so that you can highlight text. As you are never writing to the device, highlighting automatically places that text / picture into the clipboard of the host Mac/PC. Its must be wireless, preferably bluetooth, although the majority of its storage will come from a MMC card if you need to transfer alot of books. The screen should be relective, and black and white - no backlight nastiness. I don't need or want color or animation - yet.
Oh... and I want a pony.
Love the sensationalism... (Score:2)
The only reason this is even a story is because they are still calling it a "library," rather than an additional student union building or electroni
Ha-ha! (Score:2)
Ha-ha!
People write things down in books because it's permanent.
People write things down online because it's not.
Overreact much? (Score:2)
Reading on a computer screen & neuro disorders (Score:3, Informative)
However, I'm addressing the computer screen vs. paper books debate. I had a bad case of Lyme Disease this winter - actually, I still have it just not as bad. Anyway, one of the neurological problems was that I had a problem with different contrast levels - i.e. reading bright letters on a dark background or vice versa really SUCKED. Sucked as in gave me a massive headache after 5 min or so. Books were much better in this respect.
-b.
Assorted items (Score:3, Interesting)
First, it was officially named the Academic Center since at least 1973. It was known informally as the Undergraduate Library. Renaming to "Peter T. Flawn Academic Center" occurred much later.
Second, what is really happening here is that the Academic Computing and Information Technology Services organization is growing, and needed space. Rather than build a building, it was far cheaper to take the remaining space in an existing building. The ground floor was computer labs, magazines, and study carrels. The second floor was ACITS offices, a huge open lab, and a large open space. While I was there, ACITS filled the open space with support offices, and also took some of the open lab for office space. The computers that had been located in that part of the open space were relocated elsewhere in the building, mainly to the third floor. The third floor contained what few books were left, along with the media library (formerly the audio library).
Finally, there is one question I haven't seen addressed, and I really wish I was a student so I could get the question asked in public. The library system had always paid for the guards for the building. Library system budget cuts forced the Academic Center to remove the guards on third shift. When the guards went away, ACITS closed the open lab on that shift, because there was now no one to make even nominally certain that hardware didn't walk out the door. There were some loud grumbles about closing the biggest 24-hour open lab on campus, but nothing ever came of it. Now that the building is entirely an ACITS facility, will ACITS find the money for guards to have the building open for students 24 hours a day?
And I should mention that I spent a LOT of time studying in the Academic Center and using that open lab.
I'll Help! (Score:3, Funny)
Give me whatever he's smoking (Score:4, Interesting)
They also allow me to make notes, put markers, read anywhere, any time and even without electricity. They also allow me to keep both the text and my own work next to eachother at the same time without having to buy a second laptop.
Reading from the other comments on this topic, I gather that atleast 90% of the populace still prefers paper to screen reading for these and other reasons.
Re:Fiction is a waste of time. (Score:2)
Re:Fiction is a waste of time. (Score:2)
So basically you believe that the happiest people in America are the ones that do not spend any time on literature, art, music or other forms of (pop-)culture?
As you seem to describe those, seeking other goals in live than the procurement of wealth, as losers.
You do understand that this makes practically every rich and famous person a loser, don't you? Kind of a paradox one might think.
Re:Yes. (Score:2)
Re:sad... (Score:2)
Re:Why (Score:5, Funny)
You should try the aisle with the dictionaries in - it's a blast