I’m jumping in late, but I think this conversation is interesting and relevant
to many of us. Last week I gave my 6th graders our annual survey that includes
questions about their eReading habits. I compared the results to 2012 results,
the first year I did the survey. In 2012, 32% of my 6th graders preferred print
books to ebooks. This year 55% prefer print. In 2012, 53% of my 6th graders
liked both print and ebooks equally. This year that number went down to 37%.
I also surveyed my 9th graders (those same students who were in 6th grade in
2012) and it seems the novelty of the ebooks has worn off for them because now
64% of them prefer print and 31% like print and ebooks equally. In fact, what
I’m finding at our school is that the kids really do prefer reading print. They
like to browse, they don’t like to have to remember to charge an ereader, they
don’t like too much screen time, and a surprising number of them got nostalgic
listing the smell of books as part of their appeal.
That all said, we recently remodeled and were forced into downsizing our
collection. We went from 17,500 to 13,500 for the 300 students we serve in
grades 6-12. I think the first 2500 books we weeded really served to make our
collection leaner and meaner. After that we did have to get rid of a lot of
books that were perfectly good, but not as closely aligned with our curriculum
anymore. In the end, students could more easily locate the books they needed
and the books were all related to the projects that our students study.
When we first heard about our remodel, it was also suggested that we replace a
lot of the collection with eBooks. When I pointed out how expensive that would
be and that a good portion of our collection would not even be available, they
were surprised. A lot of people think eBooks are cheaper because some of them
are on Amazon, but we all know that’s not the case when you’re buying for a
library. I also spoke about it more philosophically, talking about how colleges
are looking for their students to use a variety of sources and that many of
those books that were unavailable as ebooks are actually some of the sources we
have that provide the most depth to student research. This was information I
gathered from local librarians meetings we’ve had that include high school,
public, and academic librarians as well as contacting college librarians
through email. As you can see there was a bit of a compromise, but it was worth
discussing because there was a lot that admin didn’t know about it. My
experience has been that adults love ebooks a lot more than kids do, but that
most of them don’t understand what that entails in a library.
Good luck to anyone having to have this discussion, and good luck to Laura with
both the discussion and the remodel!
Jo
On Oct 13, 2015, at 2:02 PM, Judy Scudder <jbscudder@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
We have 21,000 print books in our high school library, and a large collection
of nonfiction ebooks for research, and Overdrive mostly for novels.
You can find many studies that find that teens prefer print. I surveyed our
students last spring. 70% preferred print, 22% had no preference, 8%
preferred ebooks.
A few years ago, I took a sabbatical and interviewed university professors
and librarians all over the country. I was surprised to hear that print
sources are required by so many profs. One librarian advised me to "continue
to insist on familiarity with print sources especially books on which so many
college students rely."
Judy Scudder
On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 1:44 PM, Mary Goglio <mgoglio@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:mgoglio@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
We have about 24,000 for our k-12 students and, like Ann, our book club is
the largest ever this year. Good luck!
Mary Goglio
Mary Goglio, Library Director
Head Royce School
4315 Lincoln Avenue
Oakland, CA 94103
510-531-13000-x2202
On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 1:32 PM, Ann Lane <annlane@xxxxxxxx
<mailto:annlane@xxxxxxxx>> wrote:
A good friend had a child there at the time. According to her, it was not
quite as bookless as they said, and the results were not great!
On Mon, Oct 12, 2015 at 2:28 PM, Jan Patton <jpatton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:jpatton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Cushing Academy went “bookless” several years ago…click here
<http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/gallery/090409_cushing_library/>
for article
They now have both print and digital click here
<http://www.cushing.org/Page/Resources-in-Print> (and a new Head of School).
Just sayin’….
Jan Patton, MLS
Research Librarian
Nueva Upper School
131 East 28th St.
San Mateo, CA 94403
650-235-7166 <tel:650-235-7166>
650-235–7101 (fax)
From: <baisl-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:baisl-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> on
behalf of Laura Mauler <lauramauler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:lauramauler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
Reply-To: "baisl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:baisl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>"
<baisl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:baisl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
Date: Monday, October 12, 2015 at 2:02 PM
To: baisl <baisl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:baisl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
Subject: [baisl] Collection Size / Going Bookless
Will anyone please share the total number of books in their collection, and
if possible their total number of enrolled students?
I am facing an administration-instigated overhaul of the library into a
learning commons/makerspace, and the initial renderings have us going
bookless. I need to make the case for keeping a robust and healthy print
collection, not just a few token books for themed displays (the designers'
actual suggestion); I'm hoping to use the size of your collections to support
my case.
We are meeting on this tomorrow morning, so your data is needed ASAP!
Thank you in advance for helping me fight for our print collection!
Laura Mauler, MLIS
Librarian
Drew School
2901 California Street
San Francisco CA 94115
415.430.3718 <tel:415.430.3718> (direct)
--
Ann Lane
Librarian, Saint Francis High School
--
Judy Scudder | Director of Library Services
1055 Ellis Street, San Francisco, CA 94109
415.775.6626 ext. 732 Desk
jbscudder@xxxxxxxx <mailto:jbscudder@xxxxxxxx> | http://www.shcp.edu
<http://www.shcp.edu/>
