2008 Woodie Awards
Pulled from the shelves
Professors concerned by recent cutbacks in the library's book collection
Gregory Leporati and Anthony Morreale
Issue date: 4/2/08 Section: News
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According to University Librarian Theresa Maylone, books need to be removed from the library stacks in order to free up space for a number of renovations, including offices for professors and a tentatively named "Humanities Center," which will potentially house seminar rooms, among other things.
The process of getting rid of these books, Maylone said, has been going on since last May. However, after the University decided in December to set the deadline for shortly after graduation, the library staff found itself in need of completing its task sooner than it had expected.
The time constraint, along with an alleged lack of communication between educational departments and the library staff, has led to concern among faculty over the consolidation process. Members of the English department, in particular, are among those concerned over which books should be taken from the shelves and their initial lack of involvement in the discarding process.
For instance, Dr. Stephen Sicari, the chair of the English department, said he "found out almost by accident" about the necessity to weed out books from a member of the History department during a March 25 meeting of the Liberal Arts Faculty Council.
Sicari, who is now taking an active role in helping the library's efforts, and other professors in the English department have subsequently been in contact with Maylone in order to have a say in which books are removed.
"I think the librarians were put in really bad positions," he said.
"If you have a plan, shouldn't everyone in the faculty hear this?" he said. "I would have liked to have been told back in January."
Other departments have since been notified of the Library's need to ship out books. According to Maylone, the library has finished phase one of its plan, during which green slips were placed in books that had never been circulated before so that they could be considered for removal.
She added that phase two of the process of removing books has begun - a time when faculty expertise will be beneficial. But many professors still have concerns over having to choose books in such a short timeframe. "This is not a faculty versus library thing," said English professor Dr. Gregory Maertz. "This is a faculty who was perplexed."
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
pk
posted 4/02/08 @ 6:49 PM NA
Could SJU not think about creating satellite libraries as found on the Columbia University campus library system? While Butler is the centerpiece and main library of Columbia, there are separate libraries for philosophy, education and a myriad of other disciplines. (Continued…)
BJK
posted 4/04/08 @ 7:50 PM NA
PK makes some great observations, especially re: the reduction of circulating volumes, but the likelihood of seeing 'satellite' branches at SJU is about the same as hoping that pigs might fly one day. (Continued…)
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