Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Print versus e-book

Apparently somebody suggested that libraries are vanity building projects. And a librarian took the time to respond. The whole thing is worth a read (even though it is longish), but this paragraph jumped out at me:
It will simply not be enough for our colleges to crank out graduates described by one of my colleagues as “drones with smartphones.” We need our librarians to work alongside faculty in helping our students climb the ladder of digital literacy to information fluency, and from there, to equip them with the cognitive grounding in critical thinking so important for taking those deep dives into knowing and understanding. Unless further advances produce e-reading devices that can more fully engage the human brain’s perceptual and cognitive subsystems, solid research evidence compels the conclusion that we must provide our students with a substantial exposure to printed texts. (emphasis original)

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