By now I’m sure all of you have heard that nearby Cushing Academy has chucked all its books and replaced the reference desk with a cappuccino machine. It’s a decision that’s, um, interesting, to say the least. However, it does raise questions about the future of libraries and books. Many (but by no means all) of our patrons come here for Internet access and little else, but we still lend an enormous number of books–witness our circulation statistics and our shelving backlog. Tech pundits have been predicting the death of the book for thirty years now, and it hasn’t happened yet. But I thought it worth pulling together some recent reports and comments in the media and blogosphere about this case in particular as well as libraries and books in general. Here’s an e-book lover’s take on the elimination of the physical collection, and here is what Christopher Dawson of ZDNet has to say about it. And longtime library consultant Jessamyn West has some thoughts on the matter.
If you’ve got time for some more lengthy reading, here’s what Nicholson Baker had to say in the New Yorker about his first Kindle-reading experience. And a couple of years ago Umberto Eco spoke to the German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau on books and new media. You can see my (admittedly very rough) translation here.
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