FUSE Conferences and Bookless Libraries

Present FUSE members are happy FUSE members.

Last Wednesday, September 25th, was FUSE fourth meeting of the year!  In the blink of an eye a month goes by!

In case you missed out, there's plenty going on to hear about.  We chit chatted about our role in the homecoming parade designing a float to represent our club in the march with the theme of SU Serve!  It's pretty exciting, and plenty of members are going to be helping either with designing and creating the float, or simply showing up to support each other and show some school spirit!

In other news, there is a much-anticipated SU National Conference coming up!  This conference was started right here by the Susquehanna FUSE branch, and we are really excited to keep the tradition going strong.  There are going to be administrators and FUSE members from tons of different colleges coming together to share ideas, give presentations, read papers, and just have a great time.  It is a fantastic opportunity to enjoy being a part of the undergraduate world of editing and publishing, as well as an awesome chance to get some experience with presenting to throw on that all-important resume!

Aside from that, a fellow member brought up a really interesting topic during the end-of-club-mingling that goes on, and I thought I should bring it up because it really is interesting and very relevant to anyone concerned with the future of the book world.  On September 14th, the nation's first completely digital, "bookless" library opened its doors in San Antonio, Texas.  A bookless library.  This is a big deal for a variety of reasons.  For one, it is an unfortunate sign that our nation is moving away from the lovely hardcovers and paperbacks that we have all cherished for so long.  However, the idea is not all bad, in fact there is plenty good about this event.  The fact is that this library is going to be a huge resource for their community.  Local residents can come in and browse a significant collection of digital books, easily search through them to find exactly what they want, and read them either on one of the library's large touch-screen tables, or download a copy onto their own e-reader to take home with them.  This means less lost books for libraries, and a far simpler experience for people who were once forced to navigate through shelf after shelf of books they did not want to read.

I am definitely a fan of real, paper books, but with the recent trend of states closing libraries it is certainly nice to see that there is a viable option for transitioning the idea of libraries into the digital age.

Give this article a read to learn more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/bookless-all-digital-library-opens-in-texas/