Library watchers say it could be the first school library, public or private, to forsake ink and paper in favor of e-books. It also represents the first time a school has placed its students' intellectual lives so fully into the hands of a few online publishers and makers of electronic devices.
After reading about the plan last month in the Boston Globe, bloggers and commenters worldwide have called headmaster Jim Tracy a snob, a spendthrift and a book burner and even compared him to Adolf Hitler. One commenter on the blog parentdish.com urged, "Save the books, fire the instigator of the book-burning. Let Hitler stay dead."
All very curious when you meet Tracy, a soft-spoken, painfully polite guy who's a bit bewildered that so few people get it: His tiny school's collection is growing from 20,000 books to millions.
"It was really to save libraries five, 10, 15 years down the road," he says. "What the students are telling us is: 'We're not using the print books. You can keep giving them to us, but they're just going to collect dust.' So we're saying, 'Let's be honest: Let's give them the best electronic information available.' "
Actually, he says, he has hired more librarians to help students navigate the electronic stacks and tell "what is valuable information or reliable from what is junk."
All very curious when you meet Tracy, a soft-spoken, painfully polite guy who's a bit bewildered that so few people get it: His tiny school's collection is growing from 20,000 books to millions.
"It was really to save libraries five, 10, 15 years down the road," he says. "What the students are telling us is: 'We're not using the print books. You can keep giving them to us, but they're just going to collect dust.' So we're saying, 'Let's be honest: Let's give them the best electronic information available.' "
Actually, he says, he has hired more librarians to help students navigate the electronic stacks and tell "what is valuable information or reliable from what is junk."
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