Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Stanford's Physics and Engineering Libraries (Not Quite) Going Bookless

New books page last updated 1-20-2010.

Link to May 19 San Jose Mercury News article, "Stanford University prepares for the 'bookless library'".

Excerpt:   One chapter is closing — and another is opening — as Stanford University moves toward the creation of its first "bookless library."

Box by box, decades of past scholarship are being packed up and emptied from two old libraries, Physics and Engineering, to make way for the future: a smaller but more efficient and largely electronic library that can accommodate the vast, expanding and interrelated literature of physics, computer science and engineering.

"The role of this new library is less to do with shelving and checking out books — and much more about research and discovery," said Andrew Herkovic, director of communications and development at Stanford Libraries.

Libraries are the very heart of the research university, the center for scholarship. But the accumulation of information online is shifting their sense of identity.
[Emphasis added.]


It sounds as though "going bookless" is similar to "Retiring Guy" -- moving toward but not having fully realized the goal.   As in not a totally electronic library and having nothing to do with shelving and checking out books.



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