Read this article today:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-10-26-kindle-school-library_N.htm

Basically a private boarding school is eliminating most of their book collection and going all electronic with an ebook collection using Kindle. The old collection was barely being used so they believe this is better. I don’t really think it’s necessarily bad or good. I just think if the students were not using the library, the collection wasn’t being updated very well and the school curriculum and teachers didn’t make their students use it to learn how to do normal offline research.  Not all libraries can be substituted for ebooks. Not everyone has a computer or kindle or ever will have one. Reading text on screens is not for everyone either. Do they seriously think Ivy league schools will eliminate their huge collection of books in which students actually use for research? That’s one dumb prep school.

I don’t see why they couldn’t of just kept the collection or go through and thoroughly weed it to create some extra space for the new amenities. I can see why it may be beneficial for leisure reading and required readings, since they can order and read the latest bestsellers or classics. It sounds like the library got popular because of all the other changes besides the switch to ebooks. They aren’t there for the ebooks so it doesn’t make any difference if it was an ebook or regular book.