Harvard’s science libraries are being mushed under one super-efficient “administrative umbrella,” Harvard College Library (HCL). By July the first four will have been assimilated: the Physics, Statistics, Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and Mathematics departmental libraries, with the remaining science libraries to follow suit later.
The administrative-types have assured everyone that the plans are strictly for the sake of efficiency and have nothing whatsoever to do with the $220-million deficit.
HCL spokeswoman Beth Brainard said the plans for consolidation were “not associated with the budget.”
Even before the financial crisis hit Harvard, library officials had been entertaining the idea of revamping the structure of the science libraries to create greater efficiency, she said.
The consolidation of services and collections across the science library services would facilitate interdisciplinary research and economize the purchasing, licensing, and processing of materials, according to Bloxham’s statement.
But Brainard did not deny the possibility of cost-reduction measures. Given the current fiscal picture, the merging of the science libraries under one administrative umbrella is likely part of a concerted effort to shave costs, according to two library staffers interviewed yesterday.
Library staff, who tend toward decent levels of intelligence, aren’t buying it and are mentally preparing themselves for possible layoffs. Sometimes ignorance, if not altogether blissful, would at least be several degrees less stressful.
Posted by Alexa Harrington
image: widener library
The electronics/computer/information revolution has made libraries more fragile, especially science libraries. The fragility arises from the increasing practice of electronic, on-line periodicals. Science libraries are especially vulnerable since something on order of half their collection addition budget, in some cases half of total budget, is for journals.
The effect of on-line periodicals available at desktop is that most of the senior users of the library – graduate researchers down to even upper level undergraduate students – cease or decrease visits to the physical library. Couple this with governing boards, staffed mostly with non-librarian managers, who are apathetic to Internet metrics and only consider physical presence metrics as valid. Decreased feet on the boards equals decreased funding.
Comment by Simple Country Physicist 04.20.09 @ 5:44 am