Stanford cuts down on clutter by removing 70,000 books from its Engineering Library
By Vlad Savov 
posted July 12th 2010 5:09AM
posted July 12th 2010 5:09AM
posted July 12th 2010 5:09AM
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What a shame.
@kpenning you had to be first, didn't you?
@Bublik25 He didn't say it... ;)
@loocas
and he didn't read the article either...
Will they just fill the space up with more books? its probably better to make it more of a study hall. many of that stuff could be made electronically search able.
Yeah, this entry needs to be in alt.
@centeredtype
That library isn't even that big to begin with. Although I haven't been back in 10 years, so I don't know what it looks like today.
Maybe they can add more books and more study spaces, cubicles, etc.
All unis should do this. Mine has 3 floors (out of 5) just with physical journals that no one reads (because they are all online). The 2 other floors have piled and cramped (very useful) books just because there is not enough space. Such a waste of space IMHO.
@JorgeCardoso My uni had to build a new library because the floor was gradually shifting and buckling due to the weight of books.
Dewey decimal is my homepiece.
It's about time. All those periodicals are available online as PDFs available for all those universities. Nothing is lost here, as a matter of fact, more room is available for other material not available in electronic format.
Paper production is a VERY costly method both in production and delivery to readers.
@TareG Google books, that is the name for it :)
Are books on "loan" or how are they expensive when they already have them?
Next is iLibrary, brought to you by iPad
Now there will be a huge empty room with an iPad on a pedestal in the middle.
@Atkins You just described Steve Jobs' den, minus the retro clear plastic chairs.
@engadgetcomexcludeengadget
And the glass stairs.
@Atkins
somewhat surprised you didn't say Gorilla Glass (tm) chairs.
@Eli Haj
if a glass chair shatters, and nobody but Jobs is around to hear it....
Toss out the Shakespeare for all I care. Honestly it is the most boring thing I've ever read in my entire life. I can feel the nerd rage hitting me right about now...
@cdf74dc9
I'm sure there's a whole lot of Shakespeare in the Engineering Library.
@grumbles
Well, they should start at the English section. There are alot more obsolete vocabulary than there are equation.
@cdf74dc9
I find it ironic that someone whose native tongue does not appear to be English (I could be wrong about this though) is telling the entire higher education industry that they should get rid of The Bard!
@cdf74dc9
If you read the code for World of Warcraft, you might be similarly dis-interested.
Using it as intended might prove more stimulating.
@cdf74dc9
Engineering Library
Engineering Library
Engineering Library
@tikigawd
shush! we're busy piling on the poetic language hater!
WHY DOES APPLE GET BROUGHT INTO EVERY FU**ING POST?!??
it gets on my damn nerves this post had nothing to do with them!
@theehokage Ah, Mme Tsunade, do hold your temper....
@theehokage And I made reference to Apple but I wasnt trolling, it was just a joke, there is a difference. Go take a chill pill please
@theehokage
because this article is via Gizmodo
Well, but somebody somewhere should also keep the physical volumes, too. You never know what they might be useful for. My friend looked at the ads in old periodicals to analyze the industry in that era. Old USSR publications are printed on weird assortment of papers (they just had to use ANY paper available at that given time), and that paper can sometimes tell the change in the supply of papers. I hope libraries talk to each other to leave room for such clever scholarship.
Yes, throw out engineering books, and make more room for law and communications studies, etc.
@Marko That will go over like a Lead Zeppelin. As designed by a lawyer or communications major.
Start the flames, we have some books to burn.
i guess they can after all the recaptcha i've been doing...
they showed a picture of all these hardcover books as if these beauties were what Stanford would be seeing for the last time.
this is a good move :)
Please bring the books to my university in Africa. i think we only have 150 books in the Eng. section and most of them are outdated and have been sitting there for yrs cos their content is irrelevant. But please make sure our politicians don't get the books first, we might end up getting only a handful. LOL
@allyghee any particular part of Africa? last I heard, it's a big place with separate countries and stuff. Unless the World Cup has introduced a centralized African government that no one heard about...
Dewey Decimal FTW!
Damn.. now the gf and I gotta find a new make out spot.
Libraries, as they currently exist, are becoming obsolete. We need a new model. IMO, we should be moving towards the day where electronic books are loaned or streamed to a wireless device. Libraries should be charged with scanning old books into a cloud based library and providing access to those that cannot afford devices through kiosks.
In the NEAR future, I want to pick up my iPad or slate device and either have a book streamed to me or expire after a downloaded book as been on my system for a set period of time.
To prevent the publishing industry from taking a hit, they can simply limit the number of end users that can view a particular title at one time. Which is exactly how it works at a public library.
BTW, when the heck is someone going to create a book rental service? Let me pay a monthly fee to check out a set number of e-books at one time. I can keep them as long as I want but they are deleted when I get new e-books. That would be incredibly useful and perhaps very profitable.
It's all good until the ministry of truth starts playing with them.
On a different note, Oxford's library canceled many of the periodicals it had subscribed to and is now heavily fined for that by the publishers ( http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=412269§ioncode=26 ). Given that the publishers provide little extra service beyond printing the articles nowadays (at least in my field, the authors have to do the layout and the proof-reading themselves), it seems that academic publishing is another industry grasping for branches...
Ah, indexing.
/swoon
Destroying the material would be a mistake. Take them out of circulation and archive them somewhere.
@ChaoZ wait, what? They;re destroying books?! Farenheit 451!!!
I wonder if the librarians have some of the concerns the ones I talk to do. Many librarians see it as their existential duty to safeguard knowledge against the apocalypse, and the redundant distribution of EM-proof paper media is part of this. Further moving knowledge into the digital sphere is good, but doing it at the expense of paper media is a bad idea. Certainly these materials weren't destroyed, merely moved into long-term storage, but digital journals are wrapped in copy protection. Universities do not own the material, they merely license it. Should a journal collapse, or decide to charge more for its material, or a few nukes take out some data centers, knowledge is lost.
A EMP bomb and those information is history.
anyone know of a source for electronic engineering books? Like something I can plug in a type or problem and get some examples? Does anyone make interactive engineer books where you could manipulate a problem to get different answers. An example would be a cantilevered beam where I could move a reconfigurable mass along the length of the beam and it would calculate the stresses on the wall. Sort of a next generation learning tool. I've been out of school for over 15 years so I'm not really current of what is going on today.
Do kids still carry a 32 pound physics book around?
I am a librarian - that IS wasted space. {yay} for indexing and databases!