Dos livros e bilbiotecas

O Guardian tem um artigo fascinante sobre a utilização de livros e bibliotecas nas universidades (no Reino Unido, claro) . Pode ser lido na íntegra aqui.

Tem pormenores muito interessantes, mas deixo aqui apenas alguns trechos, para abrir o apetite...

"They [the students] prefer to be in the library. They want to use books as well as technology. The library remains at the centre of university life."

[...]

Nick Currie, a criminology lecturer at UCLan, says: " Students complain that there are not enough books in the library. We have 300 first-year criminology students and there will be perhaps 10 copies of each core text. On the one hand, what I find annoying is that they just come to class and say the book wasn't there, instead of reading something else. They also resent spending money on books. They would rather spend it on beer.

"But on the other hand, I think with topup fees especially, there are certain things they are entitled to expect, and plenty of books is one of them."

[...]

"Reading is an integral part of the learning process. I don't see how you can learn anything in depth if you don't read books. If you think Marx shouldn't have wasted his time writing 20 volumes of Capital when he only had two or three ideas that could be summarised in a paragraph, then the internet is fine. But if you want to understand ideas, you have to read books because that is where the ideas are."