<p>“bibliocide” <- love it</p>
<p>NPR story about Cushing’s Digital Library</p>
<p>[Digital</a> School Library Leaves Book Stacks Behind : NPR](<a href=“http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120097876]Digital”>Digital School Library Leaves Book Stacks Behind : NPR)</p>
<p>Fun is fun. You have to be kidding. I love self appointed experts like you. My daughter had a fabulous experience there. She picked Cushing over the so called top tier schools. She was an all A student who had her pick of boarding schools. She fell in love with Cushing when she attended classes on her visit day and found them more stimulating than those of the brand name schools she visited. With Cushing’s help she mastered time management issues caused by her ADHD and scored extremely high on her SAT’s and AP exams. Thanks to Cushing, she was accepted early decision at an extremely highly rated and highly selective national university. And have you ever visited a modern law school lately? The law library has been updated to reflect modern technology. Cushing is to be applauded for being a leader on this issue. (By the way, I am no relation to Dr. Tracy and dtracy is short for Dick Tracy).</p>
<p>I wonder how the conversion is working at Cushing.</p>
<p>Here is what happened when Princeton experimented with Kindles <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/874963-kindle-mixed-reviews-experiment-princeton.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/874963-kindle-mixed-reviews-experiment-princeton.html</a> At least Princeton is experimenting instead of jumping in head first.</p>
<p>When I found this out it completely put it out of the running for me 
.
I told an alum’s mother (the lady at the glasses store) who was advocating for it, she couldn’t believe it. She thought I must be talking about someplace else.</p>
<p>I think it’s a really interesting idea! I’m tempted to try it out, and I kind of wish I had applied to Cushing now! Think about how much more information can be shared through the internet. And I would kill for a coffee shop in the middle of my school library!</p>
<p>I LOVE my Kindle, and I only read paper books when required for school. After the Kindle I will never go back! It’s great for a number of reasons- you can hold hundreds of books on it, you can change the text size, there is a built in dictionary, etc.</p>
<p>I know some of you may be initially put off by the idea, but if you think about it you may see some benefits of a digital learning center.</p>
<p>Gosh I genuinely think it’s sad for everyone. We need REAL BOOKS! </p>
<p>Is there anyone on Earth that prefers “books” online?</p>
<p>We had interviewed at Cushing for my son and I can tell you if he had gone there, we would have pulled him with this news. No question. There are so many reasons that “real” books are better.<br>
Not to mention the beautiful building at Cushing.
Funny, over the summer I saw a few development job openings at Cushing…when I heard this news I knew why. Can’t imagine going to donors with this.</p>
<p>Of course this would be a stupid decision for an academically serious institution for able students. But Cushing is not such a school. It’s an institution with many students who read very little; a school that caters to athletes (look at its alumni listing on Wikipedia) and ESL students. This is a struggling school desperate to carve out a distinctive marketing niche among boarding schools. I think the new policy will prove ill chosen even as a means of satisfying such an ambition. But perhaps the school’s head is correct in choosing this path – and Cushing will get the quality of students such a policy deserves.</p>
<p>I really don’t see the need to talk down about this school. I recently read an article about the back stabbing measures completive students will do to have the academic edge. Such practices as taking all the necessary and required reading books out of the library until the class has ended. (I believe there is a thread on studentreview.com under Cornell)
I live in a home with books covering the walls, yet my folks own kindles.
There are a lot of bright students attending Cushings. Whats the point to bash them on cc?
Its fine to disagree about a bookless library. Its not ok to bash the students.</p>
<p>I agree with Maddog15 - no need to get petty or mean. </p>
<p>This seems like pretty old news - their website says they converted in 2009. It also said:</p>
<p>“Above all, it is important to know that Cushing Academy is not going “bookless.” While the library is focused on providing books in electronic format, many teachers continue to assign printed books in their courses, and students are encouraged to read and markup this literature in any format they find most convenient.” </p>
<p>They are paring down their book collection to about a thousand books. If the 20K books were sitting untouched, then what was the point? If their library teaches the students how to use the internet correctly for doing research (using reliable, research based publications rather than a wikipedia entry, for example) then this could actually be a good thing. </p>
<p>The school says that “The Fisher-Watkins Library is now the most-used space on campus;” I asked said in another thread a few months whether libraries get used much anymore. They seemed pretty empty to me during campus visits. </p>
<p>I would not reject a school out of hand just because they had an electronic library. I would look into how well they are implementing it.</p>
<p>
I would. Then, again I like schools with the largest secondary library in the world!</p>