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First, it was Boston's Cushing Academy.
That school's Fisher-Watkins library went bookless in 2009 by replacing the majority of its 20,000 printed books with electronic sources.
Now, Stanford University is following suit as one the first universities to go completely "bookless," with its Physics and Engineering library.
That library is going all-digital in order to deal with the storage dilemma of how to house a vast and growing library of science books, periodicals and journals, according to a San Jose Mercury News article.
The move is meant to solve growth issues at Stanford.
Currently, the library purchases 100,000 books each year, and the university has a growth agreement with Santa Clara Co.
The library will offer an electronic reference desk, and four Kindle 2 e-readers on site. It will also offer an online journal search tool, called xSearch, that can scan 28 online databases, a grant directory and more than 12,000 scientific journals, the article said.
The trend towards bookless libraries is not new. Carnegie Mellon University and other such institutions have been making a transition to bookless libraries.
The trend to all-digital libraries is expected to change the way students access information, and will also have a significant impact on the career practices and prospects of librarians.








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