Balancing Act School Libraries Look For The Right Mix Of Electronic And Printed Words As They Prepare For The 21st Century

Mike Dunn is wired. His electronic vitae includes laptop and home computers, a cellular phone and e-mail. He’s hip to the newest research posted on the World Wide Web.

But ask the 40-year-old principal of the new Mt. Spokane High School what he reads and hear the legacy of the Gutenberg press: John Grisham paperbacks and glossy educator trade publications.

“I don’t take a computer to bed to read,” said Dunn.

Mt. Spokane, scheduled to open in September, is wrestling with today’s information hurricane in the same way as Dunn.

The school’s library, with a $500,000 budget, high-tech room and the heady mission of being equipped for the 21st century, is at the hurricane’s eye.

In the library of the future, does the electronic word supplant the printed word? If the Internet is a bottomless ocean of knowledge, how relevant are musty rows of book spines?

Dunn and librarian Victoria Stockdale say they’ve tried to balance technology with tradition. They asked for advice from teachers and parents.

On the gizmo side, the list is impressive. Twenty-two library computers - plus a computer in each classroom - will be Internet-ready. And a CD-ROM bank will hold more than a dozen discs, which can be accessed from any computer in the school. The card catalog, periodical guides and some magazines can be accessed online.

The school will also have about 18,000 books, larger than most high school libraries in Spokane. The materials will be delivered in mid-July, when teachers move in.

Great Expectations will be on the shelf. But literary criticism will likely be online.

“I understand the argument for technology and am gung-ho for technology,” said Stockdale. “But I still know the value of a book.”

She says she loves book reading, which author John Updike called an “aesthetic value - the charming little clothy box, the smell of glue, even the smell of print, which has its own values.”

“I’m of the opinion that technology has taken away creativity,” said Stockdale. “Listen to a baseball game and watch a baseball game on TV. Tell me the difference.”

But she and other librarians say there is no conflict. Their job, after all, is to help teachers with their lessons.

But there is debate, which breaks down between Internet enthusiasts and skeptics. “The whole library world is looking at these questions,” said Chris Hansen, Shadle Park High School librarian.

The debate is also being carried on in nearly every American college, according to Paul LeBlanc, president of Vermont’s Marlboro College and an authority on educational technology.

Many college libraries have built wings exclusively for computer labs. The San Francisco library drew national criticism when it tossed out thousands of books to make way for CD-ROMs and Internet ports, according to New Yorker magazine.

LeBlanc advocates caution for Stockdale and the Mt. Spokane library.

“There is a lot of trash on the Web, but there are also great resources,” said LeBlanc. In fact, he was contacted for this story after a reporter found his research posted on the World Wide Web.

LeBlanc compares the accusation of the Internet “dumbing down society” to the fear Socrates expressed when writing began replacing oral storytelling.

With the Internet, “knowledge will be assembled differently … What people see as the nature of knowledge and the consumption of knowledge is fundamentally changing.”

Other local librarians remain skeptical.

Lewis and Clark High School librarian Sharyn Frankovich bought a compact disc with the text of 1,896 literary classics, narrative readings by celebrities, pictures, sound, the works.

“Not one kid has checked it out,” said Frankovich.

Such a disc is expensive, often $500 or more. And when kids find the information, they want to print it out and take it home, she said.

“I’ve never met anyone who can read a long book on a computer,” said Lee Alkire, reference librarian at Eastern Washington University. “I’d say the book is alive and well.”

Internet research also is suspect. Librarians have no method of checking sources.

Frankovich recently helped a student search the Internet for John F. Kennedy assassination home pages. The student found one, and Frankovich was horrified to see Hitler quoted, and the information attributed to David Duke, a former Klu Klux Klansman.

“This is the problem with the Internet,” said Frankovich. “People are under the false assumption that it’s all on the Internet.

“Put it this way: Are we at the paperless society yet? No. But people are expecting you to be there.”

And there is also the Updike argument, librarians concede, one which emphasizes the aesthetic comfort of a book.

“Kids come in and search the Internet, but they also say, ‘Is there a book I can check out,”’ said Shadle Park’s Hanson.

But, as LeBlanc says, to ignore the ocean of online information would be foolish. Frankovich, Hanson and Stockdale found excellent CD-ROM resources for science, geography, social issues, government documents, even metal shop classes.

And if Spokane School District residents approve a 1998 bond issue, Frankovich and Hanson will have the luxury of affording such resources. For now, the Spokane librarians, with meager yearly budgets, can just pine for Stockdale’s options.

But Stockdale feels the odd pressure of buying resources that could be made obsolete in a year by the latest whiz-bang innovation.

“You keep asking yourself, for what I’m getting, should I pay this price,” said Stockdale. “You are constantly asking yourself, ‘is this right for the kids?”’

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