The article was about how some universities in the United States are digitizing their libraries. This means that students will be able to access all of their reading material online instead of in actual books. Stanford University has teamed up with Google to make this possible. They are planning on leaving some books on the shelves like Shakespeare, but books on engineering, for example will be digitized. The universities are planning on storing the old books in warehouses once they have been digitalized. The main issue that they have run into however, is copyright issues. This is an issue because once books are online the material is accessible to everyone, making it easier for someone to infringe on copyright laws.
This sounds like a good idea to me. It would help reduce the impact on the environment because we would no longer be printing books on paper. It would also make it easier for students to access the material that they need because everything would be online so they would no longer have to wait for someone to return the book. However, there would be some downsides to this. Some students enjoy having a psychical copy of the book that they can highlight and write in because it helps them study better. Also if the internet was down, students wouldn’t be able to access the material that they need for class without having to hunt down the paper copies of the book. Overall, I like the idea of this; however I think that the libraries should keep the paper versions of the books on hand as well as digitally.
Olsen, Stefanie. "The College Library of Tommorrow." Technology News - CNET News. 3 Aug. 2005. Web. 30 Aug. 2010. <http://news.cnet.com/The-college-library-of-tomorrow/2100-1025_3-5817291.html?tag=mncol;5n>.
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