Are College Libraries Relevant Anymore?

[GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl]

I just did a 10 day, 1997.6 mile, college tour with ODS.

We saw 4 colleges officially and 2 unofficially (some might call it trespassing, but, whatever).

Two of the colleges had huge, bright, libraries with many, many books.

Two of the colleges had teeny, tiny libraries with only a few books.

Two of the college libraries went unseen.  (It was late, it was dark...j/k.)

Anyway, do colleges even need huge libraries full of books anymore? 

Would the presence, or lack, of a huge college library full of books sway your decision as to which school to attend?

What if the school with the smallest library and the fewest books was offering you the most money to go there and play lacrosse for them?  

[swamp]

Feb 28, 2014 13:34:04 GMT -5 GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl said:

What if the school with the smallest library and the fewest books was offering you the most money to go there and play lacrosse for them?  

I'd go there.

[Deleted]

I rarely went to the library for books.  I did love to go there to study and spent a significant portion of my college life in the library, so I would miss having that. They had awesome little study rooms and I would lock myself away in one for hours. 

Still, I wouldn't base college choice on the library.

[GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl]

Feb 28, 2014 13:35:06 GMT -5 swamp said:

Feb 28, 2014 13:34:04 GMT -5 GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl said:

What if the school with the smallest library and the fewest books was offering you the most money to go there and play lacrosse for them?  

I'd go there.

That IS the most tempting decision.

But, IF college libraries are still relevant, would I be trading a better education (and potentially better life-long earnings) for a short term gain?

I mean, professional lacrosse isn't exactly breaking compensation records these days.  

[Sunnyday]

Ahh. It would depend on what your kid wants to study. Accounting or something in the sciences, probably not.

Humanities, yes!!!

But no way for what I studied would I have ever gone to a university without excellent libraries.

Libraries, nowadays, do just more than store books. 

My alma mater had this library of rare books. If you were going through their collection in one of their chambers and there was a fire, the room would suck all the oxygen out of it.

The books would be safe from fire, but the person would be dead. 
And no one questioned it.

But yeah, go for the college that's going to pay you the most.

[Lizard Queen]

As a matter of fact, I took a little break to go back to college.  I hear my college has some nice libraries.  I have not had the time nor the need to go to them. Why?  Because I could link up to the library's database through the computer labs on campus, and find all the periodicals I needed through that.  (I have not needed to look for any books.)  I may be able to do that from my home computer as well, but I have not gotten that to work for me yet.  It would be nice if I had the time to hang out in the libraries, but there always seemed to be a few idiots that felt the need to chit-chat, such as the DB who came into the graduate study room yesterday and had to whisper/whisper to the guy next to him for 20 minutes straight while I was trying to read.  It's hard enough to concentrate on the reading when the subject matter is sooo boring.

[Deleted]

Libraries with books are quickly becoming a rarity. 

[Deleted]

I was a Biology major.  By the time something made it to print it was outdated. 

[GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl]

He wants to study business.  Or sports management.  Or Exercise Science.  You get the drift.

But, he also enjoys history and biology.  

So, he is considering liberal arts schools with strong business programs so he can get a good business education and a little well-roundedness.




Nope.  None of that is true.  

*I* want all of that for him.  

*He* just wants to play lacrosse.  *He* can get a degree "later".  

[NancysSummerSip]

My university had the most awesome library, with an outstanding collection of old and rare books. And it was quiet, and had those real old-fashioned, heavy tables and padded chairs with arms. And windows, lots of windows. I loved going over there on a cold, rainy day to one of the upper floors to study. Of all my school memories, that one is the best. No library before or since ever looked or felt as good.

However, this is a practical matter. If college money is an issue, he needs to consider the funds the school will provide. And his mother will whack him over the head with the reality stick, no doubt, until he realizes that there is no future in professional lacrosse.

[Opti]

Are college libraries still relevant? Yes. Are college libraries relevant or important
to your son? IDK. I think that's the question you really care about. I didn't use
my college libraries all that much, as engineering used current textbooks and most
projects were things to do & create not research in books. That said, for certain
people college libraries can be awesome.


I'm pretty jealous of what Princeton University has in the way of libraries
and I only saw their main library containing rare books
and specializing in areas I didn't expect. They also had some pretty awesome
computer resources so books are just part of what any library offers these days.
My local library offers electronic downloaded content so my guess is good
college libraries offer much more.


If nothing else, libraries can be great places to study if your room or dorm
turns out to be a bad place to get work done.

[alabamagal]

I started college 33 years ago, and I don't recall using the library for anything other than a study room. I was an engineering major.

DS in college now uses the library to study in, because his cheapo living quarters has 6 or 7 other guys living there, and is likely quite loud.

[milee]

Feb 28, 2014 14:07:10 GMT -5 GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl said:

So, he is considering liberal arts schools with strong business programs so he can get a good business education and a little well-roundedness.

If that's a key consideration, then the size of the library isn't the biggie - it's the reputation of the school. Especially if he's undecided or likely to switch majors. Pick the school with the best overall reputation (or with the best reputation in the areas he's likely to work in) so he's got a good shot at getting a job after he graduates. Employers don't care about the library, but they do care about the school's reputation, especially with the less specialized degrees like business, history, etc.

[Tiny]

I don't have kids... but it seems my friend's kids and some of my neices/nephews spent alot of their time 'at the library' to study/do homework/work on group projects.

One nephew who's on the 40 year plan for 'graduating' works in the 'library' because when he needs money he's willing to take the 'overnight hours' ie anywhere from 10pm till 7am. I'm guessing if someone is willing to pay my deliquent 25yo nephew to sit in a 'library' while the rest of the study body 'studies' or crams for their tests... then the library must still serve some sort of purpose.

I don't think the lack of a library would automatically disqualify a school... but I'd need to know there was some place for the kids to 'get away from their dorm room' to study that was safe and somewhat supervised - even if it was a deliquent 25yo perpetual student.

[Regis]

Feb 28, 2014 16:26:01 GMT -5 Tiny said:

I don't have kids... but it seems my friend's kids and some of my neices/nephews spent alot of their time 'at the library' to study/do homework/work on group projects.

Kids are still telling their parents this?  And the parents are believing it?  

[Phoenix84]

College libraries will be relevent as long as professors keep assigning research papers, people keep working on master's thesis and dissertations, and proffessors keep doing research.

The form of the libraries might change, a lot of research is published in online databases now, which colleges (should) have access to.  But not everything is published online, and you'll always need to find books on your particular subject.

A bit more than a year ago, I had to do a research paper on the Three Mile Island incident.  You could only find so much on google and online (and professors generally discourage citing sources from google or wikipedia on college papers).  The best sources I got were books written in the 80's and 90's.

As for your particular situation, I wouldn't let the small library put you off.  As I said, lots of research is published online now.  Furthermore, your son probably isn't going to do THAT many research papers as an undergrad, and those that he will do probably won't be that bad.  It's unlikely he'll be writing a book or anything close to it.  I think the logest term paper I wrote was 15-20 pages.  Furthermore, they surely have interlibrary loan, which means the library can borrow any book from any other library in the state.

[tskeeter]

Feb 28, 2014 13:34:04 GMT -5 GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl said:

I just did a 10 day, 1997.6 mile, college tour with ODS.

We saw 4 colleges officially and 2 unofficially (some might call it trespassing, but, whatever).

Two of the colleges had huge, bright, libraries with many, many books.

Two of the colleges had teeny, tiny libraries with only a few books.

Two of the college libraries went unseen.  (It was late, it was dark...j/k.)

Anyway, do colleges even need huge libraries full of books anymore? 

Would the presence, or lack, of a huge college library full of books sway your decision as to which school to attend?

What if the school with the smallest library and the fewest books was offering you the most money to go there and play lacrosse for them?  

Do you need a library to house books?  Nope.  Not any more.  With the expection of rare, little used information, most of what is in books in now available electronically.

Libraries do, however, make great quiet study locations.

Maybe we need space more like a big warehouse full of tables and chairs to use as quiet study space.

Go with the small library/big aid school.  They are spending their money in the most cost effective fashion.

[Deleted]

Interesting timing- I was listening to a podcast this week on Planet Money about the cost of attending Duke and one of the features they (Duke) bragged about was their library that was open 24/7. I was very unhappy with my university library- they had "closed stacks". That meant you filled out little slips of paper for the books you wanted (they had a card catalogue), handed them to a clerk who sent them through an old-fashioned vacuum-tube system, and waited till they called your name. Typically if you wanted 5 books, 2 were checked out and one was missing. This despite the fact that they had an old guy at the door of the library who made a pretense of checking every bag as you left to make sure you hadn't stolen any books.

I got a good education anyway but then Math majors don't use the library a lot and reading for pleasure was rare back then.

[thyme4change]

According to our school newspaper, our library was mainly used for masturbation.  

Since then they have added a huge building full of study space, and meeting rooms.  It looks pretty awesome.

[MrsSmall]

Because I am a librarian I thought I would post on this thread. Over the past several decades libraries have been moving from warehouses for books to more digital entities. You can find a lot of information online, but not everything is free. Expensive science journals might be published online now, but you still need the library to pay the subscription costs. It's the same with books. They're not free and most good libraries are going to be purchasing online books or databases of books for their students. Most have a big online presence so students wouldn't necessarily have to go to the physical building to get their materials.

I guess I think that libraries still serve an important purpose with their physical space (good place to study or - for a public library - a good community meeting space) and also as the organization that pays for access to things that aren't free. Not everything can be researched using Google and Wikipedia.

Here is a link to an article about an all-digital, bookless public library that recently opened in Texas All-Digital Library


I am a little off-topic here. I wouldn't choose a college solely because of its library, but a good library would be an indication to me of the academic quality of the school. 

[Sunnyday]

Yes, and how serious they are about their academics.

But since I am a geek, I will go on to say, that libraries are truly magical places. I was a voracious reader, and one of my greatest pleasures was to go to the "adult" section when I was a kid at my local library. I would run my hands along the shelves and randomly pick one out.

I did that one day, and it was about a subject matter that completely fascinated me. I specialized in it very early,and it led me to great schools and awesome opportunities to live in different places and my special interest also paid for all of my graduate schooling. It was serendipity, but for me libraries were always a window to the world.

[grits]

Feb 28, 2014 17:19:05 GMT -5 Regis said:

Feb 28, 2014 16:26:01 GMT -5 Tiny said:

I don't have kids... but it seems my friend's kids and some of my neices/nephews spent alot of their time 'at the library' to study/do homework/work on group projects.

Kids are still telling their parents this?  And the parents are believing it?  

Actually, I did study with classmates in the library. We'd get a study room that had a chalk board, and work out engineering equations.