Sauvons nos livres! Étonnante manifestation à l'Université de Denver!

Les étudiants de l'Université de Denver demande plus de livres! Revendication contraire aux tendances actuelles? La modernisation de la bibliothèque permettait d'éliminer 800 000 bouquins! Et on organise l'opposition en utilisant les médias sociaux!!

"Returning to my alma mater last week, I was fascinated by the latest protest. It seems DU’s campus library was badly in need of repairs and modernization. When plans for a $32-million renovation were announced, they revealed that most of the books, about 800,000 volumes, would disappear. These books would be stored at an off-campus location, and be accessible via special order only.
DU, like many universities, was seeking to adapt to changing needs and conditions. The new facility would house more computers, a million e-books and other digital resources. Space that had been used to shelve books would be used for new study areas — reflecting another trend on campuses in which students seek to escape the hubbub of dormitories and increasingly prefer the gentle buzz of a busy, but orderly study environment. Rather than just calling it a “library,” DU refers to its new structure as an “academic commons.”
To the administration’s surprise, students immediately challenged the plan and, relying upon mainly the tools of social networking, launched a protest. Their leader, Brandon Reich-Sweet, said the plan “jeopardized the academic vitality of this institution.” More fundamentally, he asked: “What is a library?”
It was here in Denver two years ago that Suzanne Thorin, dean of libraries at Syracuse University, told a gathering of educators, “The library, as a place, is dead. Kaput. Finito. And we need to move on to a new concept of what the academic library is.”
DU students clearly disagree. “What surprised us about the protest,” I learned from Ann McCall, the dean of Arts & Humanities, “is that it wasn’t the older graduate students who were most concerned, it was the younger students, the freshman and sophomores. They wanted more books in the library.”
Following a series of Save the Library demonstrations last spring, one student wrote about it in the campus newspaper, The Clarion, under the headline, “Has DU forgotten about books?” “There is something about being surrounded by books,” said Kathy Owens. “Friends, adventures and information at the tip of your fingers, far more tangible than an article a few clicks away on your computer.”"

http://blog.cagle.com/2011/10/save-our-books/