167. Your school has enough money to purchase either computers for students or books for the library. Which should your school choose to buy -- computers or books? Use specific reasons and examples to support your recommendation.
With the introduction of computers to the modern world, book, the traditional medium, are more and more challenged. Libraries often face the dilemma of whether to invest on computers or on books. With all aspects carefully considered. I think to invest on computers would be a better choice.
When equipped with computers, a library may run more efficiently than ever. Students or faculties may get useful information as fast as the computer can. A student may find it easier to type in only a key word and get the desired results, which, if done with books, may well need a long time scanning among many related books; A researcher may feel it more convenient to find an article on those CD series than in a paper book. With the development of computer technology, such as the increase of CPU rate, memory, or embedding of cache on the main-board, the efficiency of data retrieval can only be accelerated, whereas a man’s reading speed is normally limited to some extent.
The efficiency of getting information is the readers’ major concern. While for the librarians, what they care most is how to store as much as possible information within limited space.
A computer has a large storage capacity. When a book with 750,000 Chinese characters is stored as electronic text, it only takes about 1M bytes on the hard disk. When stored on a normal CD with 640M capacity, when these CDs are packed in locks, much precious space will be spared for other uses.
Unlike a book, a mortal physical medium, a computer may keep all data on its disk safe and sound. It is very easy for us to copy, backup, or transfer those data to record able CDs or other recording materials.
The last but not the least, Internet may provide these computers with more capabilities of future information exchanges.
Books, certainly, have their own merits. People have enough reasons to cherish this traditional medium. Books are easy to carry, more affordable and conveniently read without extra consumption of any other type of energy. However, for a modern library, computers, equipped with much more important merits like high efficiency large capacity, durability and Internet accessibility, can be more reasonably treated as a wiser choice.
With the introduction of computers to the modern world, book, the traditional medium, are more and more challenged. Libraries often face the dilemma of whether to invest on computers or on books. With all aspects carefully considered. I think to invest on computers would be a better choice.
When equipped with computers, a library may run more efficiently than ever. Students or faculties may get useful information as fast as the computer can. A student may find it easier to type in only a key word and get the desired results, which, if done with books, may well need a long time scanning among many related books; A researcher may feel it more convenient to find an article on those CD series than in a paper book. With the development of computer technology, such as the increase of CPU rate, memory, or embedding of cache on the main-board, the efficiency of data retrieval can only be accelerated, whereas a man’s reading speed is normally limited to some extent.
The efficiency of getting information is the readers’ major concern. While for the librarians, what they care most is how to store as much as possible information within limited space.
A computer has a large storage capacity. When a book with 750,000 Chinese characters is stored as electronic text, it only takes about 1M bytes on the hard disk. When stored on a normal CD with 640M capacity, when these CDs are packed in locks, much precious space will be spared for other uses.
Unlike a book, a mortal physical medium, a computer may keep all data on its disk safe and sound. It is very easy for us to copy, backup, or transfer those data to record able CDs or other recording materials.
The last but not the least, Internet may provide these computers with more capabilities of future information exchanges.
Books, certainly, have their own merits. People have enough reasons to cherish this traditional medium. Books are easy to carry, more affordable and conveniently read without extra consumption of any other type of energy. However, for a modern library, computers, equipped with much more important merits like high efficiency large capacity, durability and Internet accessibility, can be more reasonably treated as a wiser choice.