Books, reading, and undergraduate education - The Library and Undergraduate Education

Library Trends, Fall, 1995 by Peter V. Deekle

INTRODUCTION

This article offers a consideration of the place of books and reading in American undergraduate education. In it, the author considers the current popularity of reading in American culture and how this is reflected among undergraduates. Some key contributing factors which influence the current popularity of reading are identified. The significance of books in the teaching and learning of undergraduates is discussed, especially in contrast to the significance of other communications media. The author also theorizes on the role of college libraries in affecting this significance. Finally, the article ends with a discussion of the relationship between reading and lifelong critical thinking skills.

During the past fifteen years, the author has observed an increasing discordance between the scholarly habits and readiness for learning of undergraduates and their college instructors. This discordance includes college librarians, who frequently measure increasing student preference for the convenience of periodical literature and the growing variety of electronic media rather than for books.

THE FUTURE OF Books IN AMERICAN COLLEGES

Carl Kaestle et al. (1991) have observed that "even books may be more necessary than discretionary for many people in a society that has become very print-oriented . . . " (p. 178). Recent reports from various governmental and educational agencies indicate that the nation's adult literacy, reading comprehension, and verbal skills are at disturbingly low levels. Furthermore, I wonder about the future of "necessary communication" being affected by "the substitution of electronic media for print media."

Thus far, and despite the direst predictions, Kaestle et al. report that the portion of the public that reads books has remained roughly constant during this age of electronic communication (p. 165). In fact, according to annual book sale statistics, the percentage of people that buys books has actually increased. But what is being read in greater numbers is less often the material upon which critical thinking depends.

A book's positive qualities are readily apparent in the college environment. They can be easily produced in multiple inexpensive and identical copies, thereby enabling groups of students to acquire and use them independently of each other. They are compact, easy to transport, and require no additional equipment to use them, supporting a variety of teaching and learning styles and environments.

Critics of the printed book point out their limited capacity for true interaction with readers. They attack the book's linear sequential organization, arguing that it makes either the deliberate or random access to selected portions of the text cumbersome. As this argument goes, the book's singular advantage--an unalterable text--actually poses negative constraints for those who crave an unfettered interaction (reorganization of its contents, additions to, and revisions of the author's ideas and statements)

All of these concerns ignore the book's nearly infinite flexibility for reader interaction, largely dependent on the reader's active imagination and capacity for critical thought. In this sense, no format is more flexible, less linear in format, than the book, controlled by the reader's mind. The arguments in the preceding paragraph suggest that the passive mind set of many today may be encouraged by the nonprint formats which are used not only to entertain but to teach and inform. Reading books, ultimately, excites and engages the imagination of the reader, fostering an active attitude toward learning.

Are books, in fact, already "obsolete?" This is the conclusion of Ted Nelson (who coined the term "hypertext"). Perhaps the union of print and words is not essential. College students as scholars in growing numbers are burdened with complex social concerns, very high costs for education, and time-consuming jobs to meet these costs. Their successful scholarship is further hampered by a decline in the amount and variety of reading at the secondary school level, fostering a lack of contextual understanding with which to appreciate the variety and extent of college reading assignments. And, therefore, Nelson concludes that, with the advent of electronic communications, this information age "is really the age of information lost" (Max, 1994, p. 71).

Hypertext and multimedia formats represent the most critical immediate challenges to printed text. These new communications formats challenge the present prominence of books, newspapers, journals, and even video through the variety of choices they allow for interaction with their content. College libraries are increasingly offering reference tools like dictionaries, encyclopedias, and indexes in electronic form. Conjectures like those of Donald Norman, founder of the University of California, San Diego's cognitive science department, that "within 10 years, dictionaries will essentially all be electronic" are not that radical (Lyall, 1991, p. 3). Already, their print counterparts are seldom the first choice of undergraduates.