As the world continues to become more digitized and students rely on technology for much of their schoolwork, the administration of Booth Library aims to keep up.

Allen Lanham, the dean of Library Services at Booth, said Eastern is committed to staying up-to-date with student needs, including library resources.

“Though it’s hard to stay out ahead of technology, we try to keep up with where it’s going,” he said. “However, as a library and a university, we have to make sure we’re not chasing every dream.”

Lanham said when assessing library resources, the administration has to follow the money.

“In terms of computer technology, we’re very well-placed with computer labs, reference area and free printing to take care of the fact that we don’t have some of those resources in print and can provide it better in electronic format,” he said.

Lanham said the library is technologically wired almost to capacity.

“(Booth) is wired within an inch of its life in terms of having plug-ins everywhere and the Wi-Fi as well,” he said.

Unfortunately, having technology in place for a while can lead to students taking it for granted, Lanham said.

“We’re paying thousands of dollars for the technology to keep it all going, but students always seem to want something different or something new,” he said.

Lanham said one of the latest trends nationwide includes students downloading resources typically found in libraries onto their tablet devices or cell phones.

“Those resources might not be valuable for long periods of time unless people are organized about it,” he said.

Lanham said Booth Library embraces digital formats of books and periodicals and works to stay up to date with providing them.

“For a long time now, we have systematically gone through all periodical subscriptions and provided those electronically through our website at the expense of the print collection,” he said.

The count of the print collection at this point is low because electronic access has skyrocketed, Lanham said.

“Students and faculty seem to like it better,” he said. “In terms of periodicals, the digital format is wonderful, and it works so the print journal may soon not live here.”

If the library were to drop print periodicals entirely, Lanham said it would save the school and library money.

“Though it might save us some money, the savings are usually eaten up by inflationary pricing,” he said.

Lanham said publishers are bundling their journals together and offering them as a package deal.

“Sometimes the savings are sufficient, and we add many new titles to the collection of electronic journals simply because they came along with the package,” he said.

Booth also provides research materials in the form of eBooks.

“Libraries often don’t like to purchase books like computer technology ones because they are out of date so fast,” Lanham said. “We buy those electronically, and the publishers update what we have agreed to have access to.”

Lanham said turning all books in the library into digital resources is not in the works.

He described how Google attempted to digitize all books into a huge online catalogue and though they made a good start, were met with lawsuits from publishers.

A group of publishers known as Hathi Trust took over a section of the project, and Eastern now has access to the resources provided under them.

“It includes resources from research libraries that got their start online through the Google incident, but it has carried on to where we now have access to those materials,” Lanham said.

Jeremy Brown, a LAN Support Specialist at Booth Library, said all resources that can be accessed electronically through Booth Library can be found on the library’s website.

“Students can find information about all our technology through the website, and it includes what we’re currently using and what is provided to them,” he said.

Lanham said with a resource place as important as Booth, they cannot afford to turn their backs on technology.

“We want to make sure students have a great place to come and explore and use electronic resources, but we still want to maintain books, films, sound recordings and all the things that libraries are known to have,” he said.

Robyn Dexter can be reached at 581-2812 or redexter@eiu.edu.