Although digital books are becoming more common, I think there will always be a market for paper-and-ink (physical) books. As the article noted, it’s hard to curl-up in bed with a digital book, or take a digital book to the beach with sand and waves. I hope physical books will always exist in libraries. Hard to imagine libraries without them.

I have all sorts of questions about this. I mean, hey, who wouldn’t want a Kindle? But by my count, they’re about 382 shy, and I’m curious how long they’ll last and what problems will crop up.

On one hand, the reporter was interested in a broad overview of my thoughts on the long term future of books. What he did not quote were my concerns that eliminating books under the guise of being “progressive”, without a plan for adequately meeting the reading interests of Cushing students, was not in the best interests of those students. Harry Potter should be evidence enough that recreational reading of books is still very big, and independant reading has a significant impact on student achievement, bith short and long term.

While I did not know it at the time, I now understand that the school will be providing 18 Kindles to meet the needs of 400 students! This is not a plan, it’s a disater for these kids.

Um maybe: Uber-study-hall.

What morons!

the answer to ‘what if the battery dies or the power goes off’ can be applied to a lot of things, and was the obvious first thing people thought of in the early days of library automation, yet libraries have automated, and that’s been fine. the benefits have far outweighed the costs. electronic resources, though, were always problematic until remote access, on-site wifi, and unlimited user licenses came into being, permitting individuals to access those resources using *their own hardware*.

as cited in the piece above: until every student has an e-book reader and an unlimited book buying budget (or a device that will permit electronic borrowing); and until all that is available in print is available electronically, it’s more than a little nutty to just dump print. especially now, when e-book/e-reader technology is still really expensive, and none of the business models have even been worked out. geez. look at overdrive and netlibrary. *those* systems haven’t been hammered out yet either, and they’ve been around for over ten years.

and what the heck is this ‘libraries must be their own disruptors’-cr@p? when was the last time that person visited a library? 1955? decisions informed only by assumptions drive me crazy.