Libraries, please keep your books | csmonitor.com

Be sure to read the entire article: Libraries, please keep your books | csmonitor.com

Consider this odd juxtaposition: The literary world is celebrating over talk show host Oprah Winfrey's announcement that her wildly popular book club will again include contemporary authors.

Meanwhile, as college students headed back to the University of Texas this fall, they found the main undergraduate library there missing a key ingredient: books.

When no less formidable a celebrity than Oprah herself reinforces the notion that reading is a valid and valued activity, I can't help but wonder why colleges and universities would want to send the alternative message by divesting themselves of, you know, actual "books."

In a May New York Times article about the trend in higher education to build "digital learning laboratories," Geneva Henry of Rice University's digital library initiative in Houston, Texas said, "The library is not so much a space where books are held as where ideas are shared. It's having a conversation rather than homing in on the book."

This was not the first time I had read of libraries being stripped of books. The same decision has been made at other esteemed universities. Given the caliber of these institutions of higher learning, I told myself that my devotion to bound volumes might be merely old-fashioned.

Then Alberto Manguel, the author of "A History of Reading," came to Rhodes College as scholar-in-residence. His latest title might make some people's eyes glaze over. But don't shortchange yourself - listening to Mr. Manguel and his ideas could just clarify our collective consciousness about the importance of reading.

In an address called "How Pinocchio Learned to Read," Manguel told us, "There are characters in books that become our own because they speak to us as intimately as if they'd been imagined for us, and define us as forcefully as the first time we meet a great teacher or the first time we fall in love."

When has anyone had such an experience while mining data from the World Wide Web?