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Stanford Ushers In The Age Of Bookless Libraries

3836154332_b98c27177b_oThere was a piece this morning on NPR about Stanford University’s move away from a physical collection. This is actually old news (I covered it back in May), but it’s interesting.

The periodical shelves at Stanford University’s Engineering Library are nearly bare. Library chief Helen Josephine says that in the past five years, most engineering periodicals have been moved online, making their print versions pretty obsolete — and books aren’t doing much better.

NPR

This is a growing trend for libraries. Most have stopped trying to build their own collection, and instead they join consortiums and share the physical content across multiple schools. Digital content  is now more heavily used than physical, so having a copy on hand isn’t nearly as important as it was 20 years ago.

image by Hugo Pardo Kuklinski

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Why College Libraries Are Going Bookless by Nate Hoffelder | bluesyemre August 10, 2015 um 2:18 am

[…] news stories about this college or that college removing books from their libraries. Stanford was one of the first to go bookless back in 2010, and many more colleges have followed suit. This includes Florida Polytechnic […]


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