...we are livin' in a material world...

...and I am a m-m-m-material girl...oh yah, sing it! Oh you know that we are livin' in a material world and I am a m-m-m-material girl...(Madonna, 1984)

Last week I was at a new school in Peel. Another TL friend of mine told me I should check out the library....and while I really didn't care to at first I did. I mean, it's a library, right? Whatevs...libraries all look the same right?

Wrong. There was one thing distinctly missing from this library from what I could see....and that was books.

Ok...ok...call me old school. (nothing to do with the fact that I'm singing Madonna songs from the 80's). I am also fairly tech savvy and certainly not technology resistant. I am perfectly fine with most non-fiction texts becoming purely digital ....access 24/7....ability to annotate, collaborate, share...blah blah blah. I am OK with virtually eliminating half the books in our own school library. Oooh... envision the space and the lack of growing mold spores!

But I DO have a problem releasing ALL texts to the digital world. (also has nothing to do with the fact that I have no idea where my kindle is after vacation...if anyone finds it could you please return?) Sorry, @gcouros, while I do not encourage my kids to "smell" their books...there are other components to keeping some of our physical texts alive.

Reason #1 - Have you people never read any young adult dystopian fiction? What good are our computer files going to be when the world has been ravaged by the zombie apocalypse, mutant plagues and general world destruction? You can't access a computer when the cloud breaks down!!! And with no electricity! Books are old knowledge and what keeps us together! (and they're always stored in really neat places). I'm reading way too many YA novels if this is the first thing that came to mind.

Reason #2 - Have you ever run on a treadmill? Have you run outside? I illustrate my point further in the next paragraphs.

Reason #3 -I know this is going to sound wrong, but I still crave that "physical" connection I have with a book.  It's my literary version of comfort food ..or books. While I don't "smell" them... turning the pages physically, listening to the spine crack when I open the book (not a good thing, but I still love it), turning over the page to mark my spot....and yes, I can do all these things with my e-reader, but it's still not the same. And my secret guilty pleasure ... reading a book while eating Ketchup chips...you know when you get your thumbprints on the pages? Implants a memory of me always reading that book....of course MY book...not library books :) Sometimes for me it's the physical connection I get from reading a book that just can't be beat.

Reason #4  - There's  sense of pride or accomplishment I feel when looking at our library shelves. I can physically see all our books .... and mentally check off in my head how we compare to the Chapter's bookstore (and how many I've read). It's like how I feel when I look at a bookshelf I've built from IKEA...yes! I did that! When I look at my kindle...I don't get the same sense of accomplishment.

But who knows...maybe it's a generational thing? After all, I am a digital immigrant (or whatever that's supposed to mean) I still read to my kids using "real" books, but will they consider this a thing of the past?

How close to reality is this?

While there is a completely sound rationale for letting all paper texts go digital, I really, really hope that we don't.

Next week's topic:

...why I love listening to my cassette tapes on my Sony Walkman.

HA HA HA...just kidding. 

Really. I'm just kidding.