Moving to a digital-only school library collection

Sinclair, Kimberly

Corbett, T.  (2011).  The changing role of the school librarian’s physical space.  School Library Monthly, 27, 5.  Retrieved from http://www.schoollibrarymonthly.com

         In this article, Corbett discusses the transformation of the physical library space at Cushing Academy, a private high school in Massachusetts, whose staff unanimously voted to focus on building a 21^st Century Leadership curriculum—a decision equated with moving towards becoming “bookless,” as accomplished through three major phases:

o   Moving away from the traditional Integrated Library System toward a newer, better integrated software platform

o   Developing an improved acquisitions policy that capitalizes on the best aspects of digital content

o   Transforming the library's physical space into a collaborative work area for students and staff

            This radical decision was made after staff documented that, although the Cushing library previously maintained a collection very balanced between digital and physical resources, students significantly and consistently bypassed the print materials in favor of accessing the library’s computers and digital materials. While such a drastic shift initially strikes as sacrilegious to most librarians, Corbett reports that, to date, the Cushing library is experiencing a large degree of success since the transformation of its physical library space: database usage by students has increased exponentially, participation and circulation is thriving, and the library has developed an interactive website for the learning commons that appears to be effective and popular amongst users. He also adds that, with more than 175,000 copyrighted academic e-books and 1,000 popular reading titles recently added to the collection, the school’s circulation statistics prove that reading “long-form reading and digital resources are not mutually exclusive” of one another (Corbett, 2011). While the successes listed by Corbett are impressive, he does acknowledge that the school’s library continues to have room for improvement. Specific issues requiring further attention include: overcoming barriers to using copyrighted, subscription-based resources rather than the (simpler) default of free resources on the Internet; increasing student instruction regarding more vigorous selection/evaluation of digital information sources; and managing finances to guarantee there are a sufficient number of e-readers for all students available.

            Although I can readily acknowledge the benefits of e-readers and other digital resources in terms of space and 24/7 accessibility, I cannot help but think that a complete switch to these formats in place of physical materials, is rash, considering sufficient time has not elapsed since the widespread emergence of e-readers for researchers to gauge the long-term effects of primarily reading books on e-readers as opposed to print. I feel extremely old-fashioned even stating this doubt, but am simply being the devil’s advocate by pointing out the lack of evidence supporting such a drastic switch. While I have not come yet come across any hard evidence indicating that reading books primarily on e-readers has a detrimental effect, I have heard a little about some early studies that suggest e-readers may be a distraction, at least among younger students still acquiring reading fluency. In these instances, children tended to focus on the capabilities of the e-reader device itself, rather than on the content of the text, resulting in less information recall afterwards. However, the study (which, unfortunately, I have as yet been able to locate again!) admittedly only identified a correlation—rather than a causal relationship—between the presence of the e-readers and a decline in reading attention/factual recall; the negative correlation could be the result of various other causes. For example, the decline in attention could stem from the fact that the students with lower recall were already struggling readers who may have used the device as a distraction, resulting from an already-existing lack of engagement. Alternately, those students who focused more on the e-reader device than the text may have come from homes less technology-rich than the children who remained focused, such that their distraction resulted out of the e-reader being a much more novel and attractive device.

            In spite of any personal apprehension about chucking out a library’s entire print collection (although, to be fair: the Cushing Academy donated these materials to local schools and libraries, happily), I readily admit that this scenario represents a very intriguing experiment. And, as much as I mention there not being sufficient data to warrant a “e-reader only” approach to academic materials, I also understand that experiments such as this have to be taken in order for researchers to have data to analyze, so I am far from considering it a wholly negative model. However, I cannot help but think that, while relying wholly on digital materials may be economically feasible for a small, private high school setting such as Cushing Academy, this set-up still smacks as unrealistic for the average elementary school (where young readers are still learning how to wash their hands without prodding and how to handle materials responsibly) and/or public school library in a lower socio-economic neighborhood. In the latter scenario, a student may be able to repay the seven dollars needed to replace a lost chapter book, but can their family be expected to repay the hundred plus dollars to replace a lost or damaged Kindle? Until e-readers become far more affordable and much more durable than they currently are, it seems doubtful that moving to a digital only collection is an efficient—or even realistic—goal for the majority of public schools.