Saturday, November 05, 2011

Trading Stacks for Page Views


Whoa, I think this news marked a turning point for medical educators:

Here's an article on ZDNet.com about the Johns Hopkins medical library shutting down for good. No more bricks-and-mortar, wandering the stacks, paging through paper medical research. I spent a fair amount of time in real, physical medical libraries during my training. I have to say, being able to log in from the comfort of the living room couch and download any PDF I need is the way to go. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of nostalgia.




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And now for something completely different. I thought you might enjoy our new animated mascot!

6 comments:

Sunny CA said...

I never liked looking for things in "the stacks". Since "my time" preceded ready availability of copy machines, notes had to be taken by hand, so I only have nostalgia for the nice desks and peace and quiet within such places. It was awful as a way to access information. Still, I am glad there is a public library 2 miles from my house where books are available for browsing. I buy most of my books now, but envision myself using the library when I retire and funds are shorter.

rob lindeman said...

Once a library pays to acquire and index a journal, is there any reason for the library to restrict access to that content?

I don't mind paying a nominal fee for content. I just don't understand restricting access because I don't have a university badge.

Wv - dored. What I am, which is why I'm playine 5-card stud with two middle-schoolers.

Ps, I love libraries. I too mourn their (apparent) demise

Carrie said...

Love the mascot!! So the library - at Penn State, it scared the living daylights out of me to go into the stacks. I think somebody got murdered in one of the sections, and you'd have to turn on the timed lights to get there and it was so eerily quiet. The library was gigantic, which added to the stress. I hated having to go to the stacks for anything - I tried to do as much as I could to avoid it, but sometimes I'd need a music theory or history of Beethoven book that you could only find by going there! We also had to go to the music library all the time to listen to reserved music for our classes. I confess to nearly failing piano lit because I never wanted to do that either. :-P

Once at Jefferson and Penn, the library took on a different meaning altogether. I don't use the library at ALL to look up info. I can find everything I need on the school's library online sites. However, the library is a great place to go to get out of a distracted study space (home), spend time trying to get assignments finished between classes, and to commiserate with classmates on all sorts of projects, studying, etc. I would be very sad if they closed our libraries!!

Sarebear said...

Tangentially related sort of not, I like browsing the Library of Congress's stuff, including audio files of music and other interesting stuff.

I watched a show once on their herculean task of slowly digitizing the rare stuff (I mean, with so much stuff, you have to prioritize! lol) as well as other things. It was incredible, especially some of what they do to get the artwork in (not just a simple scan).

Anonymous said...

pseudoscience? -

http://thoughtbroadcast.com/2011/10/24/is-clinical-psychopharmacology-a-pseudoscience/

Liz said...

there's nothing like trolling a library but i would not give up the internet for anything.

http://pocketshrink.blogspot.com