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Greetings to all. Travels over for a while, I hope. There are several significant differences between books and
on-line sources that worry me when it comes to actions like UT’s.
The idea that on-line
sources can replace books may make a librarian’s job easier and library
operations cheaper, but glossing the loss of books over with a more seductive
student ‘chat’ center may be a significant mistake, and part of the
continuing dumbing down of education. I’ll stick with a books –on-line
source mix, remembering the strengths and weaknesses of both. Cheers, Lawry From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Karen Watters Cole As everyone knows, like work, the internet is changing
learning centers, including academic research and libraries. Some of it is
harder to get used to than others…but like FW, modern technology is
restoring a sense of gathering places/community to share ideas and
conversation. kwc Academic libraries empty stacks for online
centers
By Kris
Axtman, Staff writer
of The Christian Science Monitor, August 23, 2005 AUSTIN, TEXAS - When
students wander into the former University of Texas undergraduate library this
fall, gone will be the "Quiet Please" signs, the ban on cheeseburgers
or sodas, the sight of solemn librarians restocking books. The fact is, there
will be no more books to restock. The UT library is undergoing a radical
change, becoming more of a social gathering place more akin to a coffeehouse
than a dusty, whisper-filled hall of records. And to make that happen, the
undergraduate collection of books had to go. This
summer, 90,000 volumes were transferred to other collections in the campus's
massive library system - leaving some to wonder how a library can really be a
library if it has no tomes. But a growing number of colleges and universities
are rethinking and retooling their libraries to better serve students reared in
a digital age. "While
libraries are still focused on their physical collections, they aren't the sole
purpose anymore," says John Shank, director of the Center for Learning
Technologies at Penn State Berks College in Reading. The advent of the Internet
and the digitization of information has transformed the way students learn,
experts concur, and libraries are scrambling to keep up. "For
most children coming of age today, information and information technology are
really merging so that they don't see any disconnect between the two,"
says Frances Jacobson Harris, author of "I Found It on the Internet:
Coming of Age Online." To
underscore that point, last week a new public high school in Vail, Ariz.,
become one of the first to opt out of supplying textbooks altogether in the
hopes that students will be more engaged in learning. Especially designed as a textbook-free environment, all students
were assigned laptops instead and will read and turn in most homework online. At UT,
the biggest challenge has been changing antiquated notions of a library's role
in learning. "While most people have been hugely supportive of this idea,
some have been sort of grieving over this iconic loss of the undergraduate
library. I think what they are really grieving
is the passing of the book as the means of scholarly communication," says Fred Heath, vice provost for the general libraries, adding
that UT is the nation's fifth-largest academic library with more than 8 million
volumes. So to
ease some of the apprehension, administrators
took the word "library" out of their vocabulary when referring to the Flawn Academic Center. When classes start
Aug. 31, it will be filled with 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. While
students are still required to read books at the undergraduate level, they are
increasingly being asked to use a variety of different online sources.
"Libraries are about information, and books were simply a way that
information was packaged," says Judy Ashcroft, director of the Instructional
Innovation and Assessment division at UT. "But more information is being
packaged online, and we have a duty to provide access to [it]." Some
see the shift as par for the course. Indeed, when the concept of an
undergraduate library was first introduced, it was considered
"revolutionary." Originally, undergrads weren't allowed to peruse
the stacks. They had to leaf through the card catalogue, fill out a form, and a
librarian would retrieve the book they were looking for. All that changed when
Harvard University created the first undergraduate library in the 1950s. The
concept was to gather a collection geared toward the kinds of things undergrads
were studying and make it easily accessible to students. Librarians
say the way people use libraries varies dramatically. Faculty see them as
warehouses for their materials; graduate students use them as second offices.
But for today's undergrads, libraries have simply become "places to
be," says Damon Jaggers, associate director of Student and Branch Services
at UT. As a
result, a growing number of colleges - from Stanford to the University of
Arizona to Georgia Tech - are making significant changes to their libraries.
Already, these revamped learning centers are being met with huge success. Penn
State, for instance, found that the number of students coming into the library
went up by 300 percent when it opened its new information commons in 2001. But
what of the serendipity that comes from browsing the stacks? Librarians say
that can now be done online as well with bibliographical weblinks, but this new
age won't preclude books completely. "There are millions of students
reading Harry Potter [books]," says Ms. Harris. "The difference is
they might ... share their tidbits in a blog. The online library world has room
for all of that." http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0823/p01s05-legn.html |
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