Cyber Libraries Taking Over on Campus

HOUSTON, May 13 – Students attending the University
of Texas at Austin will find something missing from the undergraduate
library this fall.

Books.

By mid-July, the university says, almost all of the
library’s 90,000 volumes will be dispersed to other university collections
to clear
space for a 24-hour
electronic information commons, a fast-spreading phenomenon that is transforming
research and study on campuses around the country.Forum: Ideas on Contemporary
Education

"In this information-seeking America, I can’t think of anyone who would
elect
to build a books-only library," said Fred Heath, vice provost of the University
of Texas Libraries in Austin.

Their new version is to include "software suites" – modules with computers
where students can work collaboratively at all hours – an expanded center for
writing instruction, and a center for computer training, technical assistance
and repair.

As a library lover and alum of UT Austin (Institute
of Latin American Studies, 1978), we read this news with mixed emotions.
The
corner of the UT campus where we spent most of our time contained the Nettie
Lee Benson Collection, featuring the greatest collection of Latin American
manuscripts, maps, original resources and out of print books in the US,
where se spent endless hours researching obscure shamanistic practices
and native American textiles. Right next door was the LBJ
Presidential Library, with all sorts of obscure
remnants and relics of the Great Society and a great place to escape the
100 degree summer heat endemic in Austin. The uniqueness of these collections,
which contain parchment scrolls and maps, notebooks, relics,
gifts
and
historical
artifacts
in addition to rare books, make us dubious as to the wisdom of moving to
all electronic collections.

Scanning and indexing electronic versions of older documents,
books and other printed materials is an important move in preserving and
making available our written heritage, but here’s hoping it never completely
does away with physical, tactile, three-dimensional spaces dedicated to
the preservation of those elusive original items not so easily reduced to
ones and zeros.

from the New York Times