The internet can evolve, yes, but it has a long way to go.
Legolas Send a noteboard - 11/09/2009 07:45:10 PM
Yeah, I don't need it as much because I'm Computer Science. That's definitely true. The only reason people in the humanities need libraries, though, is because the teachers say they need libraries. Don't think for a minute, though, that 99% of the humanities students out there don't write their papers straight from Wikipedia. 
You're probably right about the theses for now, but the only reason we need books for "credible sources" is because that's the understood method for dispensing important information for now. You publish your work. There's no reason that work can't be published on the internet though.
You're probably right about the theses for now, but the only reason we need books for "credible sources" is because that's the understood method for dispensing important information for now. You publish your work. There's no reason that work can't be published on the internet though.It depends on which humanity, of course, and on the specific topics of the paper. Like Ghavrel, I seriously doubt writing a paper based exclusively on Wikipedia will get you very far in any serious class, but on some subjects you can probably find everything you need online if you know where to look. Particularly when the topic of the paper is something quite recent - contemporary politics, history of the past fifty years, that kind of thing - *and* related to the Anglo-Saxon world or other countries that are wealthy and well-represented on the internet. For the rest, Wikipedia and other reference sites will usually give you something to start with - and sometimes even name the very books you need to hunt down - but even a student who doesn't want to do much effort will find himself forced to hit the library.
There is no reason why work cannot be published on the internet, but that will take enormous efforts. Even if all new academic books were published on the internet as well, we'd still have centuries' worth of books, magazines, newspapers, manuscripts and other documents that needed to be put online. And considering the costs of all that, it likely wouldn't be for free, so that a library which currently possesses a physical copy of a certain book would probably have to pay to access that same book online - that's doable for small amounts of books, but not so much for tens of thousands.
In short, if we ever get to the point books are obsolete in the academic world, safe to say that moment is still several decades in the future.
Sure, but it's not the library's primary goal to supply you with interesting reading. It's there to educate you. I don't doubt that some people still want books, I just don't think that should be high on the school's list of priorities when making decisions about its library. If a library could educate students better with no books, it should get rid of them, in spite of the fact that some people (like yourself) will miss them.
Fair enough.
Perhaps that would be a better option for now. It seems to me that you can't adequately replace library books with another solution for the time being, but they just seem such a waste. So very few people at the average school actually get any use out of them. It doesn't seem worth the millions of dollars it costs to purchase, store, and care for all those books.
Well, the purchasing costs make up the vast majority of that, and those are sunk. Selling them would yield a rather minimal compensation, considering how much being second-hand lowers the price of a book - frankly second-hand books tend to sell for much less than they're intrinsically worth. But yes, as I've said several times, I don't think HSes really need libraries now, if they ever did, so I won't get too alarmed until I see similar articles appearing about universities...
Prep School deems books an "outdated technology"
- 11/09/2009 04:00:08 PM
1366 Views
I find this awesome.
- 11/09/2009 04:27:54 PM
775 Views
I think this may mark the first time you and I have completely agreed on a subject. 
*NM*
- 11/09/2009 05:54:49 PM
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*NM*
- 11/09/2009 05:54:49 PM
389 Views
I think they should have done both.
- 11/09/2009 04:36:53 PM
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I thought about making a post, but it would be a poor version of this one. I agree completely. *NM*
- 11/09/2009 07:21:29 PM
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I'd be shocked, except that I'm not sure why a HS needs a library in the first place.
- 11/09/2009 06:01:44 PM
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Most high schools have libraries.
- 11/09/2009 07:13:37 PM
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I'm not surprised, I've seen enough American movies and TV shows to realize that.
- 11/09/2009 07:23:15 PM
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Re: I'm not surprised, I've seen enough American movies and TV shows to realize that.
- 12/09/2009 02:36:33 AM
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I think this is probably a good decision.
- 11/09/2009 06:14:28 PM
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For colleges it's a very different story, imho.
- 11/09/2009 06:24:47 PM
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Re: For colleges it's a very different story, imho.
- 11/09/2009 06:41:20 PM
879 Views
You're betraying your lack of humanities (ha!) here.
- 11/09/2009 07:25:12 PM
921 Views
Yes. No one writing directly from wikipedia should BE in college.
- 11/09/2009 07:30:47 PM
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Re: You're betraying your lack of humanities (ha!) here.
- 12/09/2009 02:48:34 AM
755 Views
*gives you a scanner and a keyboard* Have fun.
- 12/09/2009 04:57:58 AM
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Re: cool, thanks for the free scanner, but...
- 12/09/2009 11:01:22 PM
957 Views
The internet can evolve, yes, but it has a long way to go.
- 11/09/2009 07:45:10 PM
901 Views
They still have physical classrooms, and they're whining about "outdated technology"? Pfft. *NM*
- 11/09/2009 06:32:25 PM
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*NM*
Appalling.
- 11/09/2009 07:16:13 PM
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Yeah, you can actually. Have you tried curling up with an eBook reader?
- 11/09/2009 09:05:16 PM
856 Views
Just because you're unnaturally attuned to "new" things doesn't mean everyone is.
- 13/09/2009 12:59:19 AM
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Re: Prep School deems books an "outdated technology"
- 12/09/2009 01:00:48 PM
958 Views
I agree, but students going to a prep school probably don't have financial problems. *NM*
- 12/09/2009 11:31:53 PM
396 Views
Some Prep School, and some students, hence "Some Prep School. "
- 12/09/2009 02:04:38 PM
876 Views
bah, who needs to learn how to write a bibliography
- 12/09/2009 03:47:32 PM
677 Views
You're telling the wrong person; he has a form he wants them to observe.
- 12/09/2009 05:20:34 PM
853 Views