Going paperless is appreciated and much needed these days. Therefore, In the world of college textbooks and journals, Northeastern University is going completely paperless. The University has made a lifetime partnership with an efficient digital media company in Silicon Valley. A large storage facility now stands tall in Belize, which will contain boxed up books. Textbooks, journals, and periodicals will get replaced by digital books i.e. eBooks.
Students’ dream is finally coming true: now the professors who had asked them to bring the books to class would ask them to make sure that they don’t. Instead, they are to bring tablets to the classrooms. Along with it, exams will go paperless, with the questions displayed on a Blackboard. No bookstores will now sell paper and notebooks. A yearlong suspension from extra-curricular activities will be in practice in failing of following the rules. That means no Springfest, Commencement, or even the Academic Honors Convocation for them.
Guy Montag is the president of this paperless movement. “Technology is the future. Future is now,” says Montag. “Who needs ink and wood pulp when you can have bright screens and fancy buttons?”
There are many people who love the smell of books and often visit libraries of the University for the same. Now that they won’t have the access, some of them have launched an alliance against this paperless movement. Winston Smith, a fourth-year English major has actually boycotted class. He plans on getting at least 50 copies of 1984 to be available on the campus.
“Let us flip through the creased and creaky pages as if lost in reverie,” he stated at a campus meeting. “Let us recall our childhoods when bags filled with books weighed down our shoulders. Recall when they threatened to sap our energy before our mid-morning snack of Dunkaroos and Capri Sun.”
Montag appreciates Smith’s opposition. He even let him know that Smith reminded him of himself when he was young and vulnerable. And yet, his next action completely opposed this alliance activity as he went back to reading ‘The Great Gatsby’ on his Kindle.
Pranjali Wakde
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