You Knew It Was Going to Happen

A cushy New England prep/boarding school has turned its library into a coffee bar and replaced the books with Kindles. The headmaster said that the idea behind the switch was to create "a new commons, a new agora, where people in a convivial setting exchange ideas and socially interact around ideas with culture and literature at their fingertips." Right. The three large-screen flat-panel TVs are going to help that process. One observer noted that it is the first time "a school has placed its students' intellectual lives so fully into the hands of a few online publishers and makers of electronic devices."

Oh well. At least they replaced the hard copy books with e-books instead of with Wii's.

It's a good article -- good points on both sides -- available here.

(On such changes, I'm reminded of what the late Charlton Heston said at an NRA meeting concerning efforts to limit the private ownership of firearms in America. Substitute "books" for "guns:" "They'll get my guns when they pry them from my cold, dead hands!" (Massive applause from his audience.) Those of us who love books sort of feel the same way. And probably the Sumerian clay tablet lovers felt the same way when the first vellum and papyrus scrolls were invented; and the scroll lovers when "pages" were invented; and hand-letterers when Gutenberg came along; and now tome-toters in the era of Kindle. Such is the nature of change.)