Books? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Books!

Link to CBS News Story

Bye, Bye, Library
AUSTIN, TEXAS, August 23, 2005

This story was written by Kris Axtman.

When students wander into the former undergraduate library at the University of Texas this fall, gone will be the "Quiet Please" signs, the ban on cheeseburgers or sodas, the sight of solemn librarians restocking books.

The fact is, there will be no more books to restock. The UT library is undergoing a radical change, becoming more of a social gathering place more akin to a coffeehouse than a dusty, whisper-filled hall of records. And to make that happen, the undergraduate collection of books had to go.

I'll admit it - I haven't had my second cuppa joe yet this morning. But I don't think that restarting my heart is going to cut down on the throbbing I am feeling in my head right at this moment. No books? No books? Am I going MAD, or did they just say they have a library with NO BOOKS? A coffeehouse? A coffeehouse? I know many bookstores have coffeeshops inside them, I understand the connection between coffee and books, but what wunderkind thought up the idea of just, you know, getting rid of all the books? More room for coffee that way? Was there a dearth of coffee space? Were the dusty pages of literature smelling up the place? Ruining the aroma of fine-brewed stank-bean coffee mixed with lemon-lime with a twist and a foamed non-fat skim freeze dried llama milk whitener and a big fat peppermint floating on top, perhaps?

"For most children coming of age today, information and information technology are really merging so that they don't see any disconnect between the two," says Frances Jacobson Harris, author of "I Found It on the Internet: Coming of Age Online."

They may not see any freaking disconnect, but I assure you that there is a freaking disconnect! For one thing - although there is a huge amount of information available online, the books that have not yet passed into the public domain, which would be most of the books written in the last 100 years or so, are not online. So you can't read them online. You read the book or you don't read them at all. I'd call that a freaking disconnect, wouldn't you?

To underscore that point, last week a new public high school in Vail, Ariz., become one of the first to opt out of supplying textbooks altogether in the hopes that students will be more engaged in learning. Especially designed as a textbook-free environment, all students were assigned laptops instead and will read and turn in most homework online.

You freaking morons! I'm a computer geek, I love computers, I love the Internet, I was an early adopter (BBS in 1985, first Internet dial up account in 1987, first Usenet post Feb 23, 1990, for crying out loud). But I know this much - it is MUCH HARDER to change history when there are printed books laying about that say differently. When all the information is digital, it can all be changed. All of it. You don't have to be particularly paranoid to see the problem there, do you?

At UT, the biggest challenge has been changing antiquated notions of a library's role in learning. "While most people have been hugely supportive of this idea, some have been sort of grieving over this iconic loss of the undergraduate library. I think what they are really grieving is the passing of the book as the means of scholarly communication," says Fred Heath, vice provost for the general libraries, adding that UT is the nation's fifth-largest academic library with more than 8 million volumes.

No, Fred, you mouth-breathing zipperhead. I love technology. Appropriate technology. You show me the digital version, the online version, of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," or "Henderson, the Rain King," or "The Stranger," or the collected works of Phillip K. Dick or Charles Bukowski, you dingbat!

I'm not "grieving over the passing of the book" you earwig-for-brains, I'm grieving over the fact that there is no one-for-one transference!

But what of the serendipity that comes from browsing the stacks? Librarians say that can now be done online as well with bibliographical weblinks, but this new age won't preclude books completely. "There are millions of students reading Harry Potter [books]," says Ms. Harris. "The difference is they might ... share their tidbits in a blog. The online library world has room for all of that."

Oh, well I'm freaking glad to hear that. Thank God for Harry Freaking Potter and the millions of fans who wait in eager anticipation for each new release. Well, I'm not going to bother actually reading them - what a waste of time that would be! Instead, I'll wait for the snippets and commentary to appear in blogs written by mental giants, of whom I stand in the exact opposite of awe (which hasn't a name that I can find, by the way, somebody help me with that one, please).

Everything I need to know, I learned from reading a freaking blog? Well, hooray for me! Woop-de-freaking-do! I love blogging. I love reading blogs. I love my blog, I love your blog, hell, I even love the ones I hate! I think blogs are a very cool new tool for peace, love, and understanding or something. But they ain't a substitute for actual learning. Which you get from reading books.

More and more, day by day, I feel the itch, the burning desire, to be in the vicinity of one of these cerebral poptarts when the timer goes off and up pops their contribution to endarkenment and misunderstanding. I want to see it happen right in front of me, and then I want to scamper away at high speed, laughing maniacally, clutching their severed babbling head under my sweaty arm like an evil football.

Yes, that would be fun. Argh.

That is all,

Wiggy