Massachusetts has the oldest library system in the nation. It may also be taking the lead to replace the institution.

During the summer, a suburban high school ditched its library for a new technology center. On Friday, the Boston Globe reports that a prep school in central Massachusetts is following suit.  457 reader comments have already been posted on the latter article, mostly opposing the move. I found this comment in defense of physical media compelling:

Once you print a book, no one can control where it goes. It’s easily passed around, and shared among rich and poor alike; its contents cannot be changed; it never goes off. If you put a mind to it, you can get your hands on any book every written, no matter how unpopular it is now.

Cushing is training its students to entrust all of their access to information in the hands of large corporations like Amazon and Google. Having grown up without books, they will be docile in accepting whatever is put before them as the truth, and all there is to know. What good little corporate subjects Cushing is breeding!

My concern here is less about a particular reading format (books, online, mobile devices) than about an approach to technology that obscures robust consideration of purpose and implications. Commercial and private institutions, spurred on by short-term profit motives, will continue to race toward an imaginary finish line. Informed, progressive alternatives from libraries can be a much needed counterbalance.