Filed under: School
I am intrigued by my colleague Greg Farr’s attempt at going to a paperless office. When I was thinking about this on my way to lunch today, I had a thought. What about paperless libraries? I used to kid with my librarians about books being over rated. Why would you need a book when you could just as easily look at the computer screen?
Let that sink in for a moment… no ink smudges… no paper cuts… no waiting for a book…
I know my library friends at this moment are boiling over. WHAT! NO BOOKS! ARE YOU CRAZY!?!?
Actually, I am a little bit crazy, but that is not the point. I worked for a principal once that wanted to make sure every teacher had a staff handbook. Another staff member had produced the handbook on a computer; in fact, every page was on the computer. It was so good it was made into a portion of our website. No paper cuts! No killing trees! I loved it. I’m sure that many staff members felt the same way. All the information was just a click away. You knew where to find it! Probably just as many of the staff members wanted the paper. They wanted something in their hand. They wanted to know they had it if they needed it.
Back to the paperless libraries.
I cannot imagine a world without books. I love the feel of a book in my hands. I love the smell of the pages of old books. (Don’t tell me there are bad chemicals that are killing my brain cells in that smell.) I love the texture of the pages under my fingers. I love the feeling I get when I pick the book back up. I tell my wife that the people in the book need me. They need me to finish the story. A friend of mine went on to say that you can’t take a computer and sit in the bath tub. I’m not one for bookmarks. I dog ear the pages. Margaret Coleman just yelled at me. I know she did. Damaging the books that way. I don’t dog ear books that don’t belong to me. Bookmarks fall out. Dog ears are forever.
Paperless libraries? Not a chance! You can’t dog ear computer screens.
