To the Editor:
I very much agree with the article in Thursday’s Herald on e-book difficulties. As books are moved from the library into high-density storage outside of Providence (stored just by size!), the traditional activity of browsing is eliminated. Browsing means that one looks perhaps for one book on the shelf, finds it not useful, but finds, just a few feet away, a much better book whose existence was not suspected, and then perhaps a third or fourth book that is exactly right. A student studying in a traditional library with books on nearby shelves might be tempted by idle curiosity to open one, and thereby have the whole course of his or her life changed. Such a library makes possible the idea that you are in charge of your education, and not reliant on a faculty member for all your learning.
Without this, one will still be able to request a particular book to be delivered to you, perhaps in a couple of days, but that is a hundred times slower than browsing. E-books currently have many difficulties: First of all, one has to find the e-book in Josiah. But there are many books currently without e-versions. Also, Josiah has many grievous gaps. Books published in a series — say, “Proceedings of Symposia in …” — have been catalogued only by series name and volume number: Looking for a title or author will produce nothing. I have found one such series of about 200 books, but after that, many such series, of thousands of books, have turned up. Perhaps in another 10 or 20 years some of these difficulties will slowly disappear, but in the meantime it would be a great blow to learning if our libraries were emptied.
Bruno Harris
Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Departmental Library Representative for Math
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