
Do School Libraries Need Books? - robg
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/do-school-libraries-need-books/
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vantran
The internet is a great way to find small bits of information, but most of the
time the information is really questionable. Search for a topic and wikipedia
is usually among the first entry, which is great for a start but no way
reliable enough to put in an academic paper. Of course there are information
sources that are just as great on the internet, but getting there is a long
process (there's just too much irrelevant information out there); it might be
more efficient if you just go get the book instead.

Turning books to ebooks might make it much more convenient to be accessed, but
wading through ebooks for information is horrible. I regularly have to print
about 20 pages that was originally in pdf form because I cannot stand reading
so much on the computer on a regular basis. Not when you already do a ton of
referencing and programming using the computer. I'm sure there are many people
who feel the same.

~~~
jerf
"Search for a topic and wikipedia is usually among the first entry, which is
great for a start but no way reliable enough to put in an academic paper."

Ah, you're looking at the wrong part. Go down to the "citations" part. Any
decent article that might actually be the topic of an assignment will have
five to ten times more "real" citations from primary sources than any teacher
ever assigned me to have in school.

Wikipedia is still a "cheat code" for school assignments, you just have to use
it right. Copying and pasting Wikipedia text is wrong. Following it to primary
sources is hard to call "wrong", harder to detect, and, honestly, at the point
where you're yelling at the student for getting your primary sources from one
place and not another you're crossing dangerously close to "You did the
assignment too efficiently, do more busy work" rather than "I want you to
learn something from real sources". Students are very sensitive to that sort
of message (even if only subconsciously) and we send the "do more busywork"
message pretty loudly as it is; we don't need to amplify it any further. (I'd
say, if the assignment has become too easy, make the assignment harder by
making it _actually_ harder, rather than forcing inefficient techniques.)

(BTW, my "write a paper that could be copied from Wikipedia" period ended well
before Wikipedia existed, but unless they've radically changed the types of
papers that are assigned, this is still essentially the optimal approach in
terms of time.)

~~~
vantran
Oh yes, I agree completely that wikipedia is not a horrible place to start. I
do use the Notes / References whenever I go on wikipedia to double check the
reliability of the information. But I do also notice that many times the
references will point you to books. They don't always point you to this great
primary source entirely online; at least my experience is that this is hardly
ever the case, others' might differ of course.

So yeah, I do use the internet a lot to search for information. But in the
end, the internet still take me back to the library.

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rabidgnat
Research libraries need books for a very obvious reason: Authors before the
90s did not write their content to be easily indexed by a search engine.
That's what the keyword card index was for! I agree that the internet is the
best first step for researching, but as articles age, they will become harder
and harder to find.

When I wrote research papers in college, I always located the hard copy of
articles I found online. I would yank the whole year of publication off of the
shelf and spend some time digging for buried treasure. Sometimes it was a
waste, but other times it paid off!

~~~
iujhygfbh
Research libraries are the only ones that DON'T need books.

Research libraries are about timely access to journal articles. Journals are
available, indexed, abstracted etc online. By the time a paper makes it from
Arvix to dead tree and then to the annual review abstract it's probably
irrelevent to your research.

------
ascuttlefish
Yes. Working solely from online sources might seem complete, but the result is
impoverished research. It's like a fish in a fishbowl assuming it's got the
full depths of the ocean at its fin-tips.

~~~
Groxx
I've gotta fall on this side of the argument, despite being an avid
internetter myself. There just isn't enough content on the internet in many
situations.

Maybe when Google Books finishes scanning everything.

edit: that said, "Bits are brittle." is the lamest pro-book argument I've ever
heard. Bring on the e-ink!

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kilps
The argument for books as a medium is a fair one to make, but overshadowing
this is just what students end up using. When I was in high school a couple of
years ago books were almost never used for research purposes (despite a well
stocked library) - we grew up using the internet for research, and as far as I
can tell didn't suffer too much for it.

Books being used less means that an enormous school library just doesn't make
sense for schools with limited resources.

~~~
ilamont
I agree that the Internet is great for starting research, but are you _sure_
you didn't suffer for it?

Were all the Internet sources you used reliable and documented? And how could
these sources possibly duplicate the knowledge found in printed books,
considering most books still aren't digitized or freely available to browse
online?

~~~
Groxx
Depends on the field of study. There are, for instance, _many_ sites with many
_thousands_ of whitepapers each for computer algorithms, genetics, and many
other subjects (I've looked into those two, otherwise I'd list more). A single
site can eclipse several large libraries for that kind of information.

Or, in a more specific case, try looking for 3D rendering techniques. Info on
the internet _easily_ encompasses and eclipses _all_ printed info on the
subject, and it's significantly more up-to-date in many cases.

In a more general case though, yes, I agree that many studies would fall short
if done exclusively online.

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zandorg
At my High School, I used to rent out loads of Raymond Chandler novels, and
some science fiction. So yes, if people enjoy reading, schools should provide
books.

