EFS holds its semi-annual bookfair this week. While the fall bookfair is a wonderful community building event and fundraiser, it's perhaps first and foremost a celebration of books and reading. We hold this event in the face of dire predictions of the end of the printed word as we know it. As old fashioned as some think books are, I don't know many teacher or parents who don't love the sight of a child with a book.
I'd forgotten all about one of my blog posts from last fall in which I attached a Boston Globe article announcing that Cushing Academy, a Massachusetts boarding school, was getting rid of all the books in its library. Last week, The Globe published a follow-up article, Digital Shift, about how their new "bookless library" has been received. Cushing calls it's new library "a creative commons," complete with plenty of comfortable seating and a coffee shop. As a lover of books and hater of coffee, I find sending young people the message that books are bad but caffeine is good quite interesting. Clearly, teaching digital skills is critical in education today. But is it time to quit books cold turkey? I embrace my inner Luddite when it comes to things like Facebook and Twitter, but I'm not anti-technology. As my own children can attest, I'm very excited to be getting an iPad in a couple of weeks. And among the things I'm most anxious to try out is its e-reader function. Maybe digital books are the future for school and research, but I can't imagine they're going to hold up well at the beach.
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