New library to be book-less
San Antonio's BiblioTech will be an entirely digital reading room.
San Antonio’s Bexar County seeks to reverse the traditional model of a library with an entirely digital public library, the BiblioTech, which will open this autumn.
BiblioTech will be one of the first digital-only libraries of its kind.
Many public institutions have only begun to implement new technologies. Take libraries. Although computers are available at most, they often function as a search auxiliary and not as the primary media source.
But at BiblioTech personal computers, laptops and tablets will replace the hardcover volumes, paperbacks, newspapers and magazines that usually line the shelves of traditional reading rooms. Although thousands of titles will be accessible to patrons, not a single book will be available at Bexar’s new facility.
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Library members will be permitted to check out e-readers loaded with an assortment of e-books and media. There will be study areas and meeting rooms in addition to an interactive children’s play area.
In a statement, Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff remarked, "The ever changing landscape of technology means that literacy is no longer about picking up a physical book and being able to comprehend the words; technology is changing the way we read, learn and thrive as citizens of the 21st Century.”
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The hope is that the new library will introduce digital platforms to communities that may otherwise lack access to technology. And although this library is a pilot program, the BiblioTech is not intended to replace paper everywhere.
So bibliophiles shouldn't find the BiblioTech threatening.
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Photo: Courtesy of Bexar County, Texas
To me a digital library is stupid. What libraries need to do is just get more material. I've been going to the same library for 20 years and I've read nearly every book in there. The problem I find is that they don't put new books in very quickly and it's kind of a pain.
Other than that I find nothing wrong with physical books, or digital. So don't get rid of the physical books, just put both the options together, so those who like physcal books can get them, and those who like digital can get digital.
I find it ironic that so many people are against this and they are ON THE INTERNET!!!!!! It is neither good nor bad just the next stage of technological development. Books are made of paper and that degrades. Nothing lasts forever. At least with digital formats more people have access, that was the point of the printing press.
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