I Graduated From College without Ever Checking Out a Book
My name is Katie Wall and I graduated from college without ever checking out a book. That’s right – in May of 2009 I graduated from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a school consistently ranked as one of the best public universities in the country, and never checked out a single book.
I’m not saying that UNC-Chapel Hill wasn’t a challenging school – quite the opposite, actually, but for all of the time I spent reading and studying, I never once needed to check out a book from the library.
When it came to writing research papers I was able to find everything I needed online. Of course you have to be smart about it – I absolutely do not condone using sites like Wikipedia as sources (come on, we *all* know better than that!); but because of various internet platforms, there were multitudes of valuable resources at my finger tips that once required digging through books and microfiches.
The UNC library system had an incredible online database that housed an endless supply of books and scholarly journals, and I suspect that most universities are moving toward making more of their resources available online.
While I know that I am by no means the norm – my college roommate consistently came home with mountains of books – I still think there is value in the fact that the way students read and research is no longer dependent on books in the traditional form.
What do you think? Do you think the use of traditional books is fleeting? Do you think that online platforms or things like the Kindle or iPad will become a staple in the collegiate reading experience?
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by edwardboches, Colby Gergen, Carlee Mallard, Kim Angelovich, NextGreatGeneration and others. NextGreatGeneration said: NEW POST: I Graduated From College without Ever Checking Out a Book http://bit.ly/bRpyPT #tngg [...]
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[...] Katie Wall: “I Graduated From College Without Ever Checking Out A Book” “That’s right – in May of 2009 I graduated from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a school consistently ranked as one of the best public universities in the country, and never checked out a single book. I’m not saying that UNC-Chapel Hill wasn’t a challenging school – quite the opposite, actually, but for all of the time I spent reading and studying, I never once needed to check out a book from the library. When it came to writing research papers I was able to find everything I needed online…. because of various internet platforms, there were multitudes of valuable resources at my finger tips that once required digging through books and microfiches. The UNC library system had an incredible online database that housed an endless supply of books and scholarly journals, and I suspect that most universities are moving toward making more of their resources available online.” [...]
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[...] Katie Wall: “I Graduated From College Without Ever Checking Out A Book” “That’s right – in May of 2009 I graduated from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a school consistently ranked as one of the best public universities in the country, and never checked out a single book. I’m not saying that UNC-Chapel Hill wasn’t a challenging school – quite the opposite, actually, but for all of the time I spent reading and studying, I never once needed to check out a book from the library. When it came to writing research papers I was able to find everything I needed online…. because of various internet platforms, there were multitudes of valuable resources at my finger tips that once required digging through books and microfiches. The UNC library system had an incredible online database that housed an endless supply of books and scholarly journals, and I suspect that most universities are moving toward making more of their resources available online.” [...]
Hello, my name is Tyler Durbin and I also graduated college without ever checking out a single book. My story is identical. I graduated from Miami University which is a top 20 public school and has an even better School of Business. Yet, I never checked out a book.
The school itself had great on-line resources including databases from everywhere (from Hoovers to Supreme Court rulings). They were the best resources I had, yet I took the notes off of the computer screen instead of a book page. It was great because I could access them in class, at the library, at my house, on the road, anywhere I had my computer with me I had millions of books and other resources with me. Imagine carrying that amount of information everywhere you went (it would take hundreds of semi's, I'm sure!).
As far as Kindle and iPad…i'm not so sure how they will take off in colleges. I liked having all that information on the same device where I typed the reports. So, who knows…
I'm glad to know I'm not alone!
I totally agree – it was great to have the resources all in the same place wherever I went! Although I do like the imagery of a convoy of semis following me down the street, I think I'd take the awesome online resources that both of our schools had any day
Thanks for commenting!
-Katie
<– Never checked out a book during 4 years at PSU.
Great Post!
Thanks, Scott!
It's pretty cool to hear that other people at other schools had similar experiences!
I suppose this is totally normal now, but anyone in any form of traditional media should take note. The change is coming: books, publishers, bookstores, newspapers, magazines need to stop holding on for dear life and figure out what they will do with their content in light of changes like this. Great stuff. Thanks.
Exactly – It's not that I didn't use the information from books, I just didn't use books in the traditional form. I think it really is important that publishers begin thinking of the next big way to adapt to their target market and stay ahead of the curve.
Thanks so much for your comment, Edward!
-Katie
Though I did check out a few library books in my time at Villanova, I didn't necessarily have to and I definitely see your point, here. So much is online now. Research papers, books, and studies can all be accessed via database. Some of my professors didn't even have a textbook. Rather, they had us print off chapters of may different books.
I DID, however, spend a TON of time in the library using their different resources and databases. If not for their digitization and access to these databases, I would have had to check out many, many books, resulting in a lot more work and searching.
Good post, KT. it's amazing how easy it is to access and search through information now!
Love the post KT! I too am the kid in my dorm that doesn't bring home books. My room mates think I'm a failure and then I pull A papers and they go crazy. I will say though, I've used wikipedia as a starting point for valuable information. Yes, it is publicly generated but sources for that post are listed at the bottom. That is where the gold can be found. Most posts on a wiki have valuable and credible sources, I just scroll straight to the bottom and go from there!
Love it KT great post!
I too spent a ton of time in the library (I really like the way old books smell! haha) but I was at a desk on my laptop instead of perusing through the aisles or flipping through pages.
And I also had a lot of teachers who didn't require us to buy a text book but had online resources/chapters we needed to print off (which I thought would save money, but sometimes I think it cost more…) – But I think that online resources allow professors to be more creative in how they teach instead of just requiring one text book (or making you buy multiple text books and barely using any of them).
Thanks for your comment, Tom!
Ballsy Katie, but I went to UNC as well and was more like your roommate: bringing home piles of books from the library. Perhaps your field (journalism/PR/communications) made it easier to rely on the internet for everything you needed. I use the internet for almost everything I need now and I can see how you could find just about everything you need online for emerging fields that are changing on a monthly, weekly, daily basis.
But to go through 4 years of college never having checked out a book sounds like a challenge you would have to take on rather than a coincidental outcome of your research. For all of you that never checked out a book, I ask you, when you found relevant research material in real hard-copy books in the library, did you photocopy pages? Did you sit in the library and use the book for excerpts and put it back when you were done? Did you vouch to never check out a book so that you didn't have to carry it home?
Personally, I checked out 10s-100s of books from the library during my college career. Of course I utilized the internet and the vast article search databases that UNC provided, but sometimes the BEST material was in a hard-copy book that I just couldn't find online. For classes in history, education, linguistics, psychology, geography, city planning, & English, often times the most in-depth and relevant sources weren't available online.
Until all books are available electronically for free (I can check out any book at the library for free, mind you), I'll continue to use hard-copy library resources.
SAME HERE! I'm not in college anymore, but I used to use Wikipedia to find sources, too. So many college kids were scared to even search Wikipedia in the first place for fear of it not being a credible source, but didn't even realize that they could look up the sources, and then “Voila!” credible.
I was the same way – my friends would always think I wasn't putting in the work if I wasn't surrounded by a stack of books, but I'd still get As on papers because of the valuable information I was able to pull from online databases!
And I agree that Wikipedia can be a great launching point because of their citations – you just have to be careful and cross-reference credible sources
Thanks for your comment, Patrick!!
Definitely agree. Or, if you want a quick survey of a topic to use to begin your research, Wikipedia articles can be helpful. I found that they'd break down a topic so that each bit of information was in a small, easy-to-manage section. Then, I could pinpoint exactly what I needed to do more research on.
I didn't take out too many books, and avoided the library if I could (college libraries, in general, seem to be musty and make me itchy, literally), but there were times I needed books for research I could not find elsewhere. Sometimes it's just easier to have it in book format than on a screen, too.
Thanks for your comment, Carlee!
It definitely wasn't something I set out to do – I probably clocked more hours in the library than a lot of people at UNC (5th floor, Davis! haha) – but it was something that I realized in hindsight. I know that in high school I certainly checked out tons of books from both my high school and public libraries (which also included photocopying pages from books that could not be checked out), however, in college I never had to.
And I don't think it's just dependent on my major – I started as a poli-sci major and then switched to a business major and it wasn't until the beginning of my junior year that I found enough overlap in prereqs I had taken that I switched over to the J-School.
I think different styles of research work for different people though – and I am sure that there is probably still a majority of people who would prefer the hard copy text to the online version when it comes to research – but it is interesting to see how many other people have had similar experiences.
Thanks again!
-Katie
Did you find that you would typically research something online before heading straight to the books? Your comment just made me think about that – because even if people like yourself or Carlee still prefer to check out books, how do you find out what books you want to use as sources?
Is it as simple as using a catalog at the library and looking up a title, or do you do some initial digging online first to streamline your research efforts?
Thanks for your comment!
Katie
Oh, definitely! Digging first, books second. Like I said, musty and itchy — the less time I had to spend in a library, the better.
I agree. I attended Purdue and never checked out a book. Infact I rarely had to write a paper that wasn't associated with out text materials or lecture notes. I must admit I did use our online library sources a lot though.
Plus not sure about other universities but having a built in printing amount each semester made it so much easier to simply print out what I needed instead of having to worry about carrying around a lot of extra weight in unneeded books.
Great post Katie! Enjoyed it. Think it is interesting to see how everyone survived those great college years of endless paper writing….oh how I sometimes miss it.
Really great post. And it seems like it has sparked a lot of conversation.
Currently, I'm a sophomore and have yet to check out a book from my school's library. I use the online databases a lot! There's already so much information on there that I never feel as though I need anything physically from the library. I have read books in the library, taken notes and quotes from them, and even scanned the pages I needed, but I've never actually checked out a book.
I've noticed some people say that it depends on your major. I started off as a Journalism major and now I'm a Marketing Communications major with a Business minor. You'd think this requires a lot of physical books and it doesn't. With e-readers taking off and the introduction of the iPad, I have a feeling physical books in colleges may become obsolete (but I'm talking in the far future).
I graduated from Boston University with a BA in Philosophy. From my experience, I don't think it's a major that could reasonably avoid checking out books from the library. Philosophical research is largely done from close examination of extremely long (and dense) texts. Granted, much of the source material is public domain and available online now (Project Gutenberg, et al), but it's incredibly taxing to repeatedly read 500+ page books in a few days on a computer monitor. I guess you could hang out in the library and never check them out, but I never really liked doing that.
Hi Katie,
I'd be interested to hear more about what resources you actually used as sources (re: “but because of various internet platforms, there were multitudes of valuable resources at my finger tips”). How did your professors feel about you not citing books? How were you able to prove to professors that your online resources were credible? I graduated last May and I can't imagine having gone through college without library books!
Kaitlin
We had a little bit of built in printing at UNC too – it def. made it easier to print stuff out!
And I think you raise a great point about how much papers can be dependent on text books or lecture notes! I think that had a lot to do with never having to check out books for some classes!
Thanks so much for your comment, Kim!
-Katie
lol – I love the idea of a library making someone itchy! That's so funny!
But thanks for answering my question! I think it's interesting how even if the end result is a book, we still turn to the internet as the starting point!
I always followed the rule of needing 2 or 3 sources that were a .gov, .edu, or .org. The beauty of web resources is that their credibility is fairly transparent, though I know it ruffles the feathers of purists. I think by the end of my college career more and more professors were giving up the battle on requiring printed sources. Another advantage of using web resources is that fact checking is much easier for the grader (and plagiarism checking can be machine automated)
I agree – I think the change is probably coming but that it will be a looooong time down the road!
I wouldn't let this post discourage you from checking out books in your upcoming two years – while there are a lot of great resources online, I still think there's a lot of merit in using hard copy books (like I said, my roommate was an avid book checker-outer…yup, I'm making up words!)
I'd be interested to hear from a History major or something like that to see if they thought that online resources were as helpful as people in the communications field tend to think!
Thanks so much for adding to the conversation, McKenzie! I really appreciate it!
-Katie
Katie – I wouldn't say your article is discouraging in any way. I think of it more as an example of how the way we read and deal with books is changing. I would be interested in hearing from someone like a history major too. Thanks for the response!
Wow, great discussion going on here
I returned about 30 books to the library yesterday and maybe 5 or 6 more three days ago. Although I use many digital sources for my papers, I also rely on traditional sources. I always start looking for sources online and sometimes that is as far as I go because I find everything I need. But many times I need to go with the traditional format of books. Most of the new books are available in digital formats. However, most of the older sciences books are not available online. So I have no other option but to check out books.
If all sources are provided in a digital and traditional format, I will use the digital format though.
The other part of this issue is that I love fiction and I read a lot, well kind of, don't have much time lately. But buying books is expensive so I check them out from the library.
I almost never check out books either. I found that anything I wanted from a print resource I could find in a digitized format through services like JSTOR.
Thanks so much for chiming in! I'm glad to hear from a non-communications major on this one! I think it would be very difficult to scan through 500+ pages on a computer screen over and over!
Did you find that the books you needed were always available? I just had a conversation over lunch about how when you're in a specialized field it's hard to find the books you need sometimes if they are limited in quantity.
Thanks again for your comment!
Katie
Wow! That's a lot of books!! haha
I guess I must have been lucky and always able to find everything I needed in an online source before hitting the books!
I definitely tend to prefer digital to traditional when it comes to reading for research purposes though.
I also like to read a lot (when time permits), but when it comes to leisure reading, I prefer to own the book – whether I find it for $2 on Amazon or buy it at a major retailer – I love marking up quotes and dog-earing pages, so I usually stay away from checking out those books too!
Thanks for your comment, Andreana!
Hey Kaitlin!
I was 100% citing books, it's just that the books were available to me online. A lot of times they were public domain and scanned into a PDF format, so it was still like reading through the pages but without the risk of paper cuts
Like Tanner said below – there were a lot of digitized formats available of traditional texts, so it wasn't like I was just going to Web sites or Wikipedia, but I was actually reading the books without ever having to check them out!
Thanks so much for commenting!
-Katie
(makes “agreement” sign)
Exactly! It's amazing what's available online if you know where to look for it!
There were definitely times I was able to use a .gov, .edu or .org site, but even when professors required at least X amount of traditional references, I still found them online in PDF format or other digital forms of the book.
Very interesting! To think- I went to school for something very digital (graphic design) and I never thought to see if any of the books I required were online. I will have to recommend that to my younger siblings.
Yeah! I was fortunate to have professors and a library staff who took the time to make sure we were all aware of the variety of resources our library system had and I am *so* thankful for that! I can't even begin to imagine how many books I would have had to carry around if I didn't know about the online database of text & scholarly articles!
I had a few classes that actually REQUIRED a certain number of different types of sources (ex. at least 2 books, 1 interview, & no more than 3 websites). I never found it to be a problem at all, though!
One of the great things about going to school in Boston is that almost all of the colleges/universities (Harvard being the notable exception, further proof their prestige is based largely on exclusion) are part of the Boston Library Consortium. Basically, this means that if you can't find your resource at your home library, you can search the entire network of around 20 university/college libraries and the Boston Public Library, request the book, and it will be delivered to your home library for the usual check-out. So between BU, BC, Tufts, MIT, Northeastern, UMass Amherst, UConn, and the BPL, it was hard to not find what you were looking for.
I'm with you here Addy. Even though I used books a lot in college, if they were available in digital formats I probably would have just used that & printed out the relevant pages to highlight/annotate.
I even had one research paper I wrote that ABSOLUTELY required traditional hard-copy books. The project was to utilize the “Nietz Old Textbook Collection” in the Special Collections section of the library. We weren't even allowed to check out the books. We had to sign in to the special collection room, the librarian would pull the books for us & note which ones we were referencing and we had to get everything from those books while sitting there & then hand them back. It was a hassle, but there's no way I could have found old Psychology textbooks from 1850-1950 in digital format online.
It was actually an extremely memorable (a good one) experience of paging through those old textbooks, analyzing their format, size, and content.
Carlee,
I know how that feels. Although I've never been required to use traditional sources, there were times when I had no other options. For one of my theology papers I had to go to the archives, pick up really, really, really old books (from XIII century) and use gloves and little flat sticks to flip the pages. Talk about a less digital experience
KT,
I attended UNC Charlotte as an English major with a Religious Studies minor, so basically all I did was write papers. Obviously, I was constantly needing sources. Yet, I only used hard copy books from the library once, for a British Literature paper. I still didn't check those out, though, as they were left on reserve by the professor.
I was always able to find sources via databases like JSTOR, or simply by searching Google Books and Google Scholar. And like you've said, credibility is not an issue with these sources, because they are simply PDF files of printed books/articles. I never had an issue with professors questioning my sources, with many of them encouraging us to do online research and even using the same resources in their teaching.
For students like me, who procrastinate to the most ridiculous of degrees, online sources are life-saving. It's hard to go check out library books for a paper you're starting at 4:00 am when it's due at 11:00. So, if I managed to find enough sources for the dozens and dozens of papers I wrote in college, all starting the night before or morning of, then I'm sure more conscientious students would have an even easier time.
I think another thing that makes online research a great alternative is convenience. I went to class and then always had to go directly to work, so I rarely had time to go to the library while I was already on campus. As a commuting student, it seemed a lot easier to whip out my laptop and read PDFs than drive to campus, find parking, walk to the library, and repeat the process in reverse later. Especially after a long day of class and work.
I guess that's my two cents. Really great article, by the way!
-David
exactly! I think almost every paper I wrote required a certain # of each source, but yeah, that was never a problem!
Hahahha wow that image of you wearing gloves like a scientist to page through a book absolutely cracked me up. I guess they usually put books that old on microfilm now, right? Although I never bothered to look at microfilm, or never needed to I guess. That was just more work than I was willing to invest.
Wow, thanks for the great perspective, David!
I think the notion of online resources making it easier to be a commuter student is so interesting! I never would have thought about that!
And I was always a last minute sort of person too (and a night owl) so I did most of my work in the wee hours of the morning, which I would agree made it very difficult to get resources from a library!
I agree that JSTOR, Google Books and Google Scholar are *super* helpful in finding the resources you need without flipping through the card catalog at a library! And you never have to worry about someone else having the book you need
Thanks so much for your comment, David!
For some reason I am picturing a cross between a scientist and someone eating sushi with chopsticks…and I love it!
That's awesome that you had the ability to cross-search different libraries in your area! I always heard that we were allowed to go over to Duke if we needed a book that they had and we didn't have (but A) Who would *ever* want to go to Dook, haha and B) I never checked out a book from UNC, so it seems highly unlikely that I'd make the trek to Durham to get a book)!
I know that growing up in Charlotte the library system was good about telling you where you could find books if they didn't have them at your location, but that's awesome that the school systems would do that too!
I must confess it was fun, but I don't think it would have been fun if I had to do it every semester.
You are having too much fun with this.
For some strange reason we had to look at the original book. It was a course on History of the Bible, so yeah
I was a UNC journalism grad in 2001, and I didn't check out many books, and I don't think I ever did during my last two years, when my curriculum was more slanted toward JOMC courses, so I think the major does have something to do with it. Lately, however, I've been checking out more books from Davis Library than I've ever done before as I'm working on a book that requires some background research on China. I've been pleasantly surprised by the amount of original information sources — most of which is not online — that I've been able to find in the library. Yeah, you can probably make it through college checking out zero or very few books, and that's ok, as long as you're not averse to going to the library when the situation calls for it and not missing potentially valuable sources of information by not searching there at all (my wife taught composition at UNC for a few years and had students in her classes who seemed lost when she pointed them to books from the library).
I think that is great – “you can probably make it through college checking out zero or very few books, and that's ok, as long as you're not averse to going to the library when the situation calls for it and not missing potentially valuable sources of information by not searching there at all”
I guess I never had one of those situations, but for as much time as I spent in the library, I certainly would have used books if need be!
Thanks so much for your comment!
Go Heels!
Its crazy. I've never thought about this before. When I look back at my university career, I too didn't check out any books from the library. Now, of course I had to buy text books as a part of the curriculum. But in regards to writing papers and reports all of my information came from online sources…
I remember one of my final papers taking up a large chunk of my time and required a lot of research. My friends were racing to the library to check out a variety of books and reports while I simply went to the trusty laptop.. Looking back, I'm surprised that my professor was actually quite receptive to the notion of my sources being digital. She simply requested that any PDF files I used for the report be burned onto a CD and stapled to the back of my paper.
With that said, today I dropped by a local library and checked out 5 different books that I couldn't find online. I still see value in a good old fashion hard cover novel… I mean, I would never bring an iPad or Kindle into the hot-tub but I'd bring a book any day..
Haha >> “I mean, I would never bring an iPad or Kindle into the hot-tub but I'd bring a book any day..” so great!
I came to the same realization you did too – it was never a conscious decision to not check out books – it just worked out that way!
I was the same way – as people were fighting over limited books in the library, I was able to pull valuable resources offline and write papers that were just as good, if not better!
Thanks so much for your comment!!
Katie