ALL schools offering college programs have a common fear: that the second semester repeats history, thus a decreased enrolment.

For a great number of schools, history indeed repeats itself. For a handful, the enrollment can spiral up, often because of transferees.

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Most common reason is rejection or permanent disqualification from their previous schools. Another is the desire “to start a new life,” as some students put it.

Among the first areas that transferees visit, even if cursory, is the library. Young and new to the setting, they have high hopes about what the library offers. Expectedly, there should be the traditional books. But are new digital media, or a collection of online products, available, as well?

The question bears repeating. After all, the prediction 30 years ago was that the computer networks would overtake the printing presses, and create “bookless libraries.”

Clarkson University in New York pioneered the digital library by setting up its Educational Resources Center in 1980.

And the libraries were expected to enter a no-growth era.

The prediction hasn’t materialized. Despite the thousands of electronic books available to users around the world, print books haven’t exactly disappeared. True, the printing hasn’t repeated its all-time high, but it hasn’t ceased either.

One reason is that online products are not necessarily less expensive than print journals. Online research journals, in fact, cost more than their printed counterparts.

Moreover, printed versions were bought only once and were used for a number of years. For online versions, payment was for every access; thus, prices go higher.

If libraries depend greatly on electronic books, they’d need more funding and staffing resources for purchasing, cataloging and managing the journals.

Indeed, libraries are constantly searching for less expensive digital versions, and avoiding pricey subscriptions. But they aren’t always successful.

Those who succeed can actually supplement and make their holdings current, relevant and useful. Then, all that the schools need are Ched evaluators who are Internet-savvy as well, therefore current, relevant and useful.

Evaluators who know nothing beyond the traditional books will be minus-factors to schools applying to offer new courses.

Engage them in a discussion of how online researches can be accessed, and the various websites available for every possible topic under the sun, and you’re met with blank looks.

It’s time Ched started including evaluators in its RQAT teams, those who are familiar with electronic libraries and know how to surf the Internet as well. Otherwise, you’ll constantly have sessions where young professors explaining the proposed curricula chucklingly whisper to each other about “how far detached and archaic” most evaluators are.

With the growing importance of electronic books, will librarians become obsolete? Far from that. Whether accessing traditional or new digital media, customers need librarians to explain to them the various formats that information and culture are displayed and stored, and to authenticate whatever they have googled.

(lelani.echaves@gmail.com)