and in the news....
Aug. 24th, 2005 08:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slipstreamsurfrI ran across this story this morning linky
Now it's not my university, but another one in the same system. UT Austin is a larger and somewhat better funded school than mine at UT Arlington.
Even though I am a technology guy I feel my inner luddite stirring. I actually enjoy picking up a book and reading. Reading books on a computer is actually quite a bit annoying. I think I would miss the availability, the handling of, the experience of the dusty tome pulled from the shelf.
Now, I will be the first to admit that I've used the online databases at my university to find old articles in obscure journals, but to replace the undergraduate library with roving laptops? It's just not the same. We seem to be pandering to a society that is becoming ever more reliant on their computers. It won't be long before the majority of college students won't be able to do basic research unless they have their laptop. Soon the days of digging through your dusty stack of post-it note tagged books will be as antiquated an idea as going to your librarian to ask them to pull a book for you from the stacks.
When something is printed and bound in a book there is a sense of permanency. Something is marked down and shelved for the ages, unchanging, unrevisiable without generating an entirely new book. It is said that history is written by the victors. If we go to completely digital libraries, how can we ever be assured that the "book" we are reading hasn't been just re-edited and released by a victor and we never knew it. Sure, it sounds a bit 1984'ish, but without something tangible to hold in your hands, how do you know?
Still, these are my thoughts this morning as I read this article.
What are yours?
Now it's not my university, but another one in the same system. UT Austin is a larger and somewhat better funded school than mine at UT Arlington.
Even though I am a technology guy I feel my inner luddite stirring. I actually enjoy picking up a book and reading. Reading books on a computer is actually quite a bit annoying. I think I would miss the availability, the handling of, the experience of the dusty tome pulled from the shelf.
Now, I will be the first to admit that I've used the online databases at my university to find old articles in obscure journals, but to replace the undergraduate library with roving laptops? It's just not the same. We seem to be pandering to a society that is becoming ever more reliant on their computers. It won't be long before the majority of college students won't be able to do basic research unless they have their laptop. Soon the days of digging through your dusty stack of post-it note tagged books will be as antiquated an idea as going to your librarian to ask them to pull a book for you from the stacks.
When something is printed and bound in a book there is a sense of permanency. Something is marked down and shelved for the ages, unchanging, unrevisiable without generating an entirely new book. It is said that history is written by the victors. If we go to completely digital libraries, how can we ever be assured that the "book" we are reading hasn't been just re-edited and released by a victor and we never knew it. Sure, it sounds a bit 1984'ish, but without something tangible to hold in your hands, how do you know?
Still, these are my thoughts this morning as I read this article.
What are yours?
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-24 03:39 pm (UTC)And I know exactly what you mean about the tangibility of books, nothing can replace the magic of that. Plus I think it's much easier when writing essays to have a pile of annotated books open at different pages than about six million different windows open on your PC!
Plus it would be an eye-strain nightmare. The work I'm doing means I have to spend a lot of time using EEBO (early english books online) and I get such a headache after an hour or so reading stuff on there - even the modern print transcripts.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-24 04:07 pm (UTC)As for writing an essay with digital referencing, I've found that having a dual monitor setup helps that greatly. I can keep my six million different windows open on the other screen, while I write on the screen in front of me. I hear you though, it's an easier, better feeling process to be going through your books and flipping to your parts when writing a paper than having to futz with finding that one reference you think you remember somewhere on this page that is hugely long with the text is running together while you stare at it.
I will also admit though that were it not for digital imaging and archiving, far fewer students would have access some truly great research items and tools. It's a slippery slope we are approaching though.
It seems like we have an entire crop of students coming out of high school now that have been fed a diet of research strictly by the Internet. They often don't seem to understand what plagiarism is, and don't understand why they need to do more than read the SparkNotes on the piece, or watch movie from blockbuster, or, cut, copy, and paste from something they found on Google and turn it in as their own.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-24 05:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-25 03:15 am (UTC)and it's not just that it's hard to lay down and roll over a laptop after you fall asleep reading a good book.. it's that you can't take a laptop into the bath with you! (I know, horrible treatment of books, but it's my one guilty pleasure..)