A library ... without books?

Imagine Randall Library without books, journals or magazines. Instead, the shelves which once stored books are transformed to make more room for extra desks and computers. Impossible? While such a scenario is not likely while we are still in college, it isn't completely out of the question, either.

In 1994, the University of Southern California opened what is generally considered the first digital undergraduate library, according to www.thebookstandard.com. Since then, other universities have followed this digital trend, emptying most or all or their books from shelves. Such schools include Cornell, Georgia Tech, Northwestern, Stanford, the University of Michigan and the University of Texas at Austin.

The likelihood of a bookless future was the subject of discussion in one of my classes, mass communication in society, a few weeks ago. With the growing popularity of the Internet as a means of retrieving information and the plethora of information readily available at our fingertips at any given moment, it is no surprise that tangible books are taking a backseat to the Internet. This is especially so with the invention of reading devices like PDAs and tablet PCs and programs like Palm Reader and Microsoft Reader, which make reading seem "booklike."

A quick Google search reveals an endless amount of Web sites to download e-books, many of them for free, straight to your computer. I found popular titles like "Da Vinci Code" and the Bible. While not everyone owns a "booklike" device, most everyone has access to a computer to read these e-books, and many people do prefer this type of reading. Let's not forget the skyrocketing popularity of e-textbooks, either. It seems almost inevitable that all professors will soon allow the option of retrieving textbook material online; it would save money, paper, and we would have the option of printing only the chapters we need.

There are benefits to the availability of books and scholarly materials online. Physical books are expensive to produce, expensive to buy, require shelf space, and can be easily damaged. Some unpopular books may never even leave their designated shelves. If these materials exist online or can be transformed digitally, why should libraries and universities pay for books which require such extensive upkeep to preserve?

Call me old-fashioned, but I don't like reading off a screen. I still go to the library to check out books. I still browse through hundreds of titles in the library search catalog until I find the one or two sources which MAY be what I need for my research paper, then tromp upstairs in Randall on my mission to find that book, only to find that I can't find it because someone else has not shelved it correctly. Even though this method is sometimes frustrating and inconvenient, I still prefer searching for books over searching the Internet. Don't get me wrong, I have done my share of last-minute Internet research, but why would I use books when I could quickly and easily browse the Internet?

For one, unsurprisingly, the Internet may not be reliable. The presence of an actual book gives me visual proof that it is a dependable resource: an author has spent who knows how long to research and write the book, worked extensively to find a publisher, and someone else edited it to ensure the information is presented correctly. For all we know, someone wrote a bunch of nonsense and presented it online as something published in a book or scholarly journal.

Most importantly, it is the sensory experience that makes reading worthwhile. I don't care how close technology comes to reproducing something which resembles a book, there is nothing like lying in a hammock reading a thoroughly thumbed-through paperback, immersed in another world with your favorite characters and authors. I like sitting at home or in the library surrounded by piles of books to manually search for the information I need for my paper. Simply searching for keywords within an e-text makes it too easy to miss out on the important information I may unknowingly skim over. Actual research skills in younger generations are becoming extinct, as all we are taught now is to lazily search the Internet instead of adventuring into aisle upon aisle of books or finding articles in scholastic journals. With the Internet revolution threatening our once hard-bound library, our reading skills are evolving from scanning, flipping pages and highlighting to scrolling, copying, and pasting.

Will we, one day, read bedtime stories and lullabies to our children in front of a laptop? I certainly hope not. At least my mom saved all of my Dr. Seuss favorites in the attic.