Print Textbooks: Going the Way of the Dodo?

I was working on my semi-annual print medical book order the other day and realized there was a question running in the background of my mind. It was asking "ummm, exactly why is it that you are ordering these astronomically-expensive paper/print books that very few people are ever going to read anyway?"

So I had to stop and remind myself of some of the reasons for having print books, as opposed to electronic books, in today's medical library. Here are a few I came up with, in order of importance:

• Some people want to read print books rather than electronic books. They find the paper, the smell, the browseability, something about the esthetics of print books appealing. Although I don't feel that way about textbooks or books I'm using for reference, I do feel that way about leisure reading books, and that gives me justification for purchasing medically-related non-fiction print books such as Atul Gawande's Checklist Manifesto, Paul Linde's Danger to Self, and Rebecca Skloot's Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks . These are books I want to read from cover-to-cover, maybe even curl up and get comfortable with.


• The second reason is regulatory in nature. The Joint Commission requires that hospital libraries provide access to current reference books in all medical specialty areas during times that computer networks and electrical systems are down. So this means you've gotta have... guess what? Yup, good old-fashioned astronomically-expensive print medical reference books AND a flashlight.

After explaining that to myself, I carried on with my book order.