YAKIMA, Wash. -- Are books becoming obsolete?

At the Crushing Academy in Ashburnham, Mass., the library’s 20,000-book collection is being replaced by a fully digital collection.

According to a recent article in USA Today, school administrators found that on some days, fewer than 30 books — or about 15 percent — were being circulated.

Library watchers say Crushing Academy could be the first school library, public or private, to forsake ink and paper in favor of e-books.

This means students will use their laptops or a library PC to access the 13 databases in which the school subscribes. At the library, students can also download books onto one of 65 Kindle handheld electronic book readers from Amazon.com. — which circulate like library books.

The digital conversion has evoked strong responses, with some bloggers and commenters calling Headmaster Jim Tracy a book burner, snob and spendthrift. But Tracy responds that the library has now grown from 20,000 books to millions.

Besides, he contends students are more apt to read digital books over their printed counterparts.

What do you think? Should school libraries go digital?

— Erin Snelgrove