In a sight we're sure to see in much of academia someday, Stanford University is prepping to open a new library next month that will feature 85 percent fewer bound books than the old library, as officials continue a transition to less-costly eBooks.
At one point the Stanford Engineering Library contained more than 80,000 books, periodicals and other tomes. When the new library opens next month, it will contain about 10,000 books. In recent months Stanford has been digitizing old books and subscribing to periodicals available as eBooks.
How did Stanford decide what to keep? If a book had not been checked out in the last five years, chances are it would be digitized.
There are mixed signals in academia about whether this will be a full-fledged movement or something applied in specific situations. On the one hand, engineering is a field where change happens fast, and being able to upgrade texts quickly is a very good thing. On the other hand, changes comes much more slowly to many of the humanities; it's hard to see why the average Lit department needs to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars digitizing Henry James or John Dos Passos novels. So we're not quite as sanguine on the prospect of most college libraries going totally digital in coming years: while the emphasis on new works will undoubtedly be on the electronic, the paperbound book wont be totally kicked off campus.
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