College administrators are reportedly considering closing Sanborn Library, ending the independence of Sherman Art Library and eliminating six staff positions to deal with budget cuts imposed in the face of the current economic downturn.
Faced with permanent budget reductions of between 6.25 and 6.5 percent, the library system will also decrease student employee work hours by 2,400 annually and reduce the hours of operation of Paddock Music Library.
The proposed closings were first announced at meetings between library administration and affected staff members of Sanborn and Sherman libraries late last week. Although a final decision is expected to be announced to all professional library staff on Tuesday, staff members present at last weeks' meetings said the plan seemed likely to go forward.
Library staff members were told that the current proposal included the integration of Sherman's and Sanborn's collections into the Baker-Berry Library.
Since Sherman presently has an entrance connecting it with "Main Street" in Baker-Berry, the art books would remain in the same physical location, but circulation would be managed in the larger library. Sanborn House, however, would no longer be considered a part of the library system.
While College Provost Barry Scherr would not disclose details of the proposals to administer fiscal reductions, he said layoffs were "certainly possible" and that the closing of certain libraries is "conceivable."
"We're asking those areas to propose to us what they want to do," he said when asked from which areas s would come. According to Scherr, three-quarters of the budget in some departments goes toward staff compensation.
Librarian of the College Richard Lucier could not be reached for comment, though in a memo sent from Lucier to all library staff dated Oct. 7, he outlined the possibilities to handle the required budget cuts.
Lucier's memo was to inform the staff of the library -- about 150 people system-wide -- "of a number of actions/changes that will go into effect as soon as possible."
Items mentioned in the memo included: the annual reduction in hours for student employees of the library, integration of "distributed service sites" in Paddock, Sanborn and Sherman that "will be more closely integrated into services delivered through the Baker-Berry Library," reduced hours in Paddock, a "totally-digital Feldberg" and cuts in the information-resources budget of Rauner Library.
A draft letter from the Office of the Librarian dated Sept. 23 noted, "layoffs are not presently planned ... although they are conceivable if the Library is financially constrained in its mission to meet the current and future scholarly and teaching needs of the core academic program."
The library has maintained a hiring freeze for some time now, and had planned to save money through a process of attrition -- eliminating currently unfilled positions.
The proposed changes and layoffs are still pending approval from multiple levels of administration, but they came as a surprise to potentially affected staff members, who thought that although their positions would change in some aspects, they would still be needed to do the work of the library.
"I had never thought that it would come to this. It reduces the services and does not serve the students as well, even though Baker-Berry provides good service," said one library staff member who wished to remain anonymous.
Regarding services provided by the smaller libraries, one staff member said, "Their services would now come from Baker-Berry. They would be less specialized and more streamlined."
The distributed nature of its library system has long been a point of pride for the College. Tour guides point out the varied libraries, suggesting that the specialization allows them to better cater to the specific needs of academic departments.
The plan to connect Sherman and Baker-Berry has been in the works since 2001, but when the idea was initially formulated, there were no plans to eliminate staff positions.
One idea for the future of Sanborn involves its conversion to a study space under the supervision of the English department, but the exact future of the library space -- and its traditional afternoon tea service -- remains unclear.
Sanborn Library was built in 1929 using funds donated by Edwin Webster Sanborn, who wanted to "bring back the close association between teacher and student that he felt had been lost with the rapid expansion of the College," according to literature provided by the library.
"Once these little, unique libraries are gone, they're gone," said another library staff member.
