WEARY WIDENER BLUES

Statistics are almost always reverted to in order to prove a debatable point. The number of undergraduates using the Main Reading Room, the number of books issued from the desk during the day and those taken out for overnight use cannot certainly be taken as a yard rule to measure accurately the success or failure of the Reading Period just closed. Such statistics can be interpreted in too many different ways to suit the fancy of those persons attempting to prove their particular points.

Yet the similarity of the figures on the use of the Reading Room with those of 1929 should be definite proof of one thing. The use of the library during the two weeks preceding Midyear Examinations is practically the same as that of last year. There has been no such sudden decrease as that evidenced in the large discrepancy of the statistics of last year with those compiled during the installation of the new plan in 1928.

The increasing measure of widespread discontent with which the whole innovation is regarded after three years of trial is in no way proportional to the use or lack of use of the facilities in Widener. Certainly the intrinsic value of the Reading Period cannot be based on the total aggregate of pages perused by a weary student body. If the Reading Period is in general disrepute, the fault lies in its inherent qualities of usefulness to the undergraduate. Another year of trial has made no appreciable difference.