Marginal Increase

With students acting more like a generation of book-eating silverfish than a group of well mannered readers, Widener Library and its annexes face an increasing shortage of essential texts. Irresponsible squiggles carved into the margins of valuable books and the destruction of entire chapters by argumentative students retire vital books from service with alarming frequency. This destruction of rare and out-of-print works seriously hampers the efficiency of the University library system. Coupled with increasing book thefts by a few slippery dips, the mutilation of library property becomes a problem that must be solved if students expect to retain generous reading privileges.

Refreshingly different from other college libraries in its minimum fines and restrictions, Widener is loath to revert to the edict of 1931 and expel every student caught defacing a book. But in view of the wholesale destruction of bound newspaper copies, the cross-hatching of back examination forms, and the tendency to question the statements of unpopular authors with ink and bad taste, the library staff may be forced to apply thumb screws where simple warnings fail. However, even the most stringent regulations would only tax the ingenuity of college doodle bugs; any real amelioration of the situation must come from the students, who are, in the long run, the victims of their own stupidity. A badly defaced book not only annoys the reader, but its usable life is cut from twenty years to a bare three years. With a text shortage still prevalent and the college filled to capacity, students would be foolish to scribble away their education by destroying an irreplaceable stock of references.

While the scores of uninhibited pencils present a major problem to Harvard librarians, outright theft of valuable books runs a close second in the minds of Widener officials. Library patrons, adept in squeezing past the guards and equally well-versed in the art of filling out bogus charge slips, make off with an average 500 books each year. A more efficient checking system at the exits and a program to distribute identification cards to men using the library could easily protect the entire student body from the greed of a light-fingered few.