Over 540 students are asking Dartmouth's administration not to merge Sherman Art Library with the larger Baker/Berry system in a petition that will be presented to College President James Wright and Provost Barry Scherr today.
Seniors Joe Ackley and Ariel Rubin said they initiated the petition out of concern that combining Sherman with Baker/Berry will significantly lessen the quality of art history students' education.
Students' reasons for signing the petition ranged from concern for employees who would lose their jobs to perceived damage to the reputation of the College.
College Librarian Richard Lucier defended the decision to merge Sherman with Berry in discussions last month on the basis that eliminating some of the smaller libraries would allow Dartmouth's libraries to save money without compromising the quality of their collections.
Administrators have noted the inevitability of such cuts given the difficulties of Dartmouth's financial situation. Dartmouth's endowment decreased 5.7 percent during the last fiscal year, contrasting sharply with last year's zero percent return and a 46.6 percent positive return two years ago.
Michael Gazzaniga, Dartmouth's dean of faculty, has publicly praised Lucier's handling of a difficult situation. Lucier has "made some judicious decisions about dealing with reality," he said last week.
But citing the complexity of Sherman's collections, Rubin said that replacing Sherman's full-time staffers with staff from Baker-Berry would prevent students from using the library as easily as they do now.
"There are no good academic or scholastic reasons for the cuts," Rubin said. "The College is only doing this to save money."
The petition notes that many art history students rely on specialized journals to do research, journals which students cannot search through any online database.
Similarly, Sherman's reference section, which contains books on topics like Christian iconography and dictionaries of terms frequently used to describe Baroque art, is more complicated than the reference section of a more general library and requires an accordingly well-trained staff, Rubin said.
In the petition, Rubin and Ackley also express concern that the position of the art librarian, currently vacant, will be transformed into a position to be filled part-time by a Baker/Berry employee.
Ackley said that, given the rapid changes in the discipline, unless Dartmouth has a knowledgeable librarian in charge of making acquisitions for Sherman, its collection could quickly become obsolete.
The petition also expresses concerns about the damage to the atmosphere of the art library. It states that "Connecting Sherman to Berry also runs the risk of turning Sherman into a corridor between Baker/Berry and Tuck Drive, thus decreasing students' ability to study there."
Lucier said when the budget cuts were first announced that plans for a physical connection between Sherman and Berry were underway since 2001, before the budget cuts were announced.
Ackley and Rubin also suggested the merger calls into question the true depth of the College's commitment to undergraduate education. Thus, the petition condemns the proposal to merge it with Baker/Berry as "antithetical to the College's mission."
"Sherman is all the more remarkable given our lack of a graduate program in art history," Ackley said.
Dartmouth President James Wright has consistently affirmed Dartmouth's commitment to high-quality education despite the budget cuts. He emphasized before a faculty meeting late last month that Dartmouth will remain committed to providing quality undergraduate education despite its budgetary struggles.
Students who signed the petition cited more general concerns about the College's decisions to lay off staff, the implications of Dartmouth's decisions to cut funding for an academic program like the libraries, and possible ensuing erosion of the College's prestige.
Karima Rizk '03 only took her first art history class this term, but she signed the petition out of concern about Sherman staffers who may be laid off due to the budget cuts. "These people have kids and families to take care of, and I know the College has a lot of money," she said.
Rizk also noted that the closure of a separate art library would weaken Dartmouth's prestige. "It would reflect badly on Dartmouth and look bad for prospective students," she said.
Evan Konwiser '03 signed for similar reasons. "The closing is a rather big deal, and the College has lots of different places to cut corners."
He was unsure what other programs might be cut or how, but he said that the "symbolic implications" of the College's decision to cut a program which so enriched other students' academic experiences worried him.
