Zeno Swijtink
09-07-2009, 09:30 PM
Overeager futurism at Cushing (https://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2009/09/07/overeager_futurism_at_cushing/)
September 7, 2009
DON’T WRITE an obituary for traditional libraries just yet, because would-be futurists often guess wrong.
Urban planners of the 1920s just knew that average Americans and Europeans would abandon their homes and yards for sleek, efficient high-rise apartment towers with shared gardens. In the 1960s, set designers on the TV series “Batman’’ envisioned a computer so powerful that its blinking lights covered half the Batcave.
And now, administrators at Cushing Academy in Ashburnham are getting rid of the 144-year-old prep school’s books and are embracing a digital future. A library with 20,000 books will give way to a $500,000 “learning center’’ outfitted with digital readers, laptop study carrels, flat-panel TVs, and even a sophisticated coffee shop. “When I look at books,’’ the school’s headmaster told a Globe reporter, “I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books.’’
Maybe. It’s obvious, at least in the world of periodicals, that electronic screens are rapidly assuming a role once played by printed paper alone. But the long-term shape of the Internet-era news and publishing industries has yet to be settled, and the precise route that progress takes is hard to predict. In the 1980s, plenty of forward-thinking schools got stuck with Betamaxes, or with computer labs full of TRS-80s and Commodore 64s.
For some reason, the education field seems prone to fads masquerading as waves of the future. Cushing’s bookless library may catch on. Or it may join the “open classrooms’’ built in the 1970s that still vex elementary-school teachers a generation later.
This is not to endorse the nostalgics who insist that learning can occur only from leafing through books or roaming through library stacks. The Internet has its own form of serendipity. A Web-surfing session that begins on “Curt Schilling’’ can lead, an hour later, to information on the history of towns surrounding Medfield or on the fates of various celebrity politicians.
But students still have plenty to learn from books. It’s a safe bet that, for years to come, maintaining stacks of books will yield more educational returns than the $12,000 cappuccino machine in Cushing Academy’s learning center.
September 7, 2009
DON’T WRITE an obituary for traditional libraries just yet, because would-be futurists often guess wrong.
Urban planners of the 1920s just knew that average Americans and Europeans would abandon their homes and yards for sleek, efficient high-rise apartment towers with shared gardens. In the 1960s, set designers on the TV series “Batman’’ envisioned a computer so powerful that its blinking lights covered half the Batcave.
And now, administrators at Cushing Academy in Ashburnham are getting rid of the 144-year-old prep school’s books and are embracing a digital future. A library with 20,000 books will give way to a $500,000 “learning center’’ outfitted with digital readers, laptop study carrels, flat-panel TVs, and even a sophisticated coffee shop. “When I look at books,’’ the school’s headmaster told a Globe reporter, “I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books.’’
Maybe. It’s obvious, at least in the world of periodicals, that electronic screens are rapidly assuming a role once played by printed paper alone. But the long-term shape of the Internet-era news and publishing industries has yet to be settled, and the precise route that progress takes is hard to predict. In the 1980s, plenty of forward-thinking schools got stuck with Betamaxes, or with computer labs full of TRS-80s and Commodore 64s.
For some reason, the education field seems prone to fads masquerading as waves of the future. Cushing’s bookless library may catch on. Or it may join the “open classrooms’’ built in the 1970s that still vex elementary-school teachers a generation later.
This is not to endorse the nostalgics who insist that learning can occur only from leafing through books or roaming through library stacks. The Internet has its own form of serendipity. A Web-surfing session that begins on “Curt Schilling’’ can lead, an hour later, to information on the history of towns surrounding Medfield or on the fates of various celebrity politicians.
But students still have plenty to learn from books. It’s a safe bet that, for years to come, maintaining stacks of books will yield more educational returns than the $12,000 cappuccino machine in Cushing Academy’s learning center.