In a message of , Matt Smith (1:3644/6) writes:
 MS>    It's a lot easier to effectively secure _one_ 486 than 10,000 
 MS>books!
 MS>    You can even just lock up the 486 by itself in the librarian's 
 MS>office, behind a locked door and locked to her table.
 MS>    OTOH, the security problems (both theft and vandalism) in HS 
 MS>libraries are horrendous.  
 MS>
It's clear you have never had to maintain a computer lab.  I know how  
difficult and EXPENSIVE that is in a college environment; it has to be worse  
in a pre-college setting.
Putting materials into computers and onto the web has many advantages, but I  
seriously doubt it will make things cheaper overall.  What good is one 486  
when you have a class of 30 students?  Or, if you are going to start printing 
 out and duplicating materials from the internet, have you made any estimate 
of  what that will cost?  Books can be a very cost effective way of 
presenting  printed materials, since they can be used again and again.  That 
will not be  possible with xeroxed handouts.
There's no free lunch. If you want quality educational materials, somebody  
will have to compensate the authors and publishers.  The free stuff available 
 on the internet is very important and valuable in providing current 
materials  that cannot be found in a text -- discussions of pending 
legislation, the  latest space shuttle results, new treatments for aids, etc. 
 But you cannot  not now and never will see comprehensive, carefully written 
and editted  treatments of standard academic areas available without charge 
on the  internet.   Do you know, for example, what it costs for a site 
license for an  online enclopedia?  I was quoted $20,000 by Brittanica for 
our UMassK12  internet service.  
--- msged 1.97S ZTC
---------------