Michigan Seton Hill Gives Out iPads

The other day one of my professors was grumbling about the Michigan Difference as he struggled to get his mic to work. Well, maybe that professor would be happier at Seton Hill:

Everyone is looking for an angle on much-hyped entrance of the iPad to the marketplace and Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania has grabbed a piece by announcing that every incoming freshman will be handed a tablet when they walk in the door for the 2011-2012 academic year. The campus is wired end-to-end and students also get new Macbook, which sounds like a bonanza, except the part about a $500 fee per semester for all the digital convenience. Nobody ever said the future would be cheap.

Personally, I’m not that impressed just because the first version of Apple products tend to be pretty marginal compared to their successors. Additionally, in educational terms is the iPad really that different than a laptop?

But this did get me thinking about one thing: if the iPad becomes a super-mega-hit, what happens to libraries? Granted this also hinges on the possibility that libraries will have scanned all their books (which Michigan is on its way to doing). Could you check out books at libraries on your iPad? Will it be some kind of timed text thing? Will you have to be at the university’s library to get books?  Would libraries disappear almost completely or just become huge study lounges?

–Daniel Strauss