It's true that I am a little sentimental about taking these old friends off the shelf, and I will miss seeing their colorful covers and comfortingly thick spines each day. But I will not miss dusting them, shifting them, inventorying them, and other aspects of physically managing huge paper books. I'm enchanted by the prospect of being able to use all the information contained within wherever and whenever I like, and I predict students will be even more charmed by the citation tools that are available - no need to hand-key all that bibliographic info!
Just like weeding a garden is necessary to maintain its health and productivity, we must occasionally weed the library too. These books will go to other needy schools in faraway places and the space on the shelf will be reassigned to a wonderful new collection of CDs and DVDs on everything from philosophy to history to religion to art. So don't be sad! Visit the library catalog instead and see just what kind of terrific, useful things you can find to do your Civil War paper from your bed at 3 a.m. on a Sunday.
