Thoughts...

[Donna McCreary]

(08-13-2016 06:26 AM)BettyO Wrote:  I utterly agree, Donna!

I like the feel and smell of a "real" book in my hands! I collect 19th Century books and I love the smell of the old, yes, musty leather!

I DO have digital "books"/reading material on both my iPhone and iPad....but I prefer the real deal. John C Brennan, used to mark the same in books - and I do as well; only not with highlighters - that's a good idea, though! I use those little plastic colored stick on "PostIt" note thingies to mark each page which I first underline with pencil.....

My greatest fear is that kids today are forgetting what a library is and how to use one! They are too familiar with digital resources (many, many of which are horribly incorrect to use!) Unfortunately nowadays anything can be posted online and used for schoolwork; etc. And I've also seen too many digital "self-published" books published online and by Amazon which have horrid errors and really bad sentence structure and grammar - some of which is downright laughable! On plus side, there are some WONDERFUL self-published and well researched books online as well - and I can name quite a few....

Unless it is footnoted and documented, I will not cite it as a source - and fortunately, a lot of teachers do the same. In college, we were NOT allowed to use Wikipedia at all.....

Someone once contacted me and asked if Mary Lincoln truly invented peanut butter. Once I picked myself up from the floor after having a fainting spell from disbelief, I found the courage to inquire as to why this question was being asked. Someone had watched a cartoon (yes, a cartoon) television program where Mary Lincoln had invented peanut butter, but Lincoln thought it best to say that George Washington Carver did in order to improve race relations. The person went on to say that this information was also online.

Not only are we losing quality books, we are losing the our vocabulary. People no longer understand concepts such as satire, humor, and fiction.