The Horseless Library

Here is an interesting story recounted from a presentation by Bruce Sterling at the PopTech conference:

"Bruce also related a story told to him by an engineering professor friend of his. The prof split his class into two groups. The first group, the John Henrys, had to study and learn exclusively from materials available at the library...no internet allowed. The second group, the Baby Hueys, could use only the internet for research and learning...no primary source lookups at the library. After a few weeks, he had to stop this experiment because the John Henrys were lagging so far behind the Baby Hueys that it is was unfair to continue."

Subsequent Googling indicated the experiment occurred at Harvey Mudd College. It would be nice to read a full write-up of this experiment. If the library print collection fares so poorly in this context one might ask several hard questions about the role of print collections in academic libraries.

(via kottke)

Comments:

I'd be interested to read the details, as well. For one thing, what was the topic of their research? The print collection might need some improvement in this area. (I can think of some areas where the internet could use some improvement.) The other thing I wonder is how much of the failure of the print library was due to lack of resources, and how much was due to relative difficulty of use. The failure is interesting either way, of course.

Posted by Karen Ciccone on October 23, 2006 at 11:17 AM EDT #

I agree with Karen (belatedly) -- the failure of the print library was probably due to "relative difficulty of use." It would be interesting to compare, somehow, contemporary students who study and learn using the internet with a similar pre-internet group who used the print library.

Posted by Amanda French on November 08, 2006 at 06:58 PM EST #