Lost in the Shuffle

In a week or so, workmens' coats and tools will disappear from the shelves of the new Woodberry Poetry Room in Lamont, making room for volumes of verse and recordings of poetry readings. Harvard men will enjoy increased facilities for listening and a larger room than the old one in Widener. But as things stand now, Radcliffe girls will be unable to use it as they could use the old Wood-berry room. The loss of this privilege will affect not only poetry lovers, but girls in English O, who need to listen to these records as part of their course work.

Keyes D. Metcalf, the head librarian, has suggested that the Radcliffe Library build a similar room for Radcliffe students. That would be possible, but not immediately, because no space is available. When the Radcliffe music building is constructed, sometime in the future, a potery room could be built in the present listening room which would be vacated.

In the meanwhile, it is only sensible for the Library Committee to allow Radcliffe to use the Woodberry Room. Even if the arguments for excluding girls from Lamont are valid--and that is certainly an open question--they do not apply in this case. Extra copies of records would not have to be bought, extra attendants would not be needed to keep down the volume of coed chatter, and there certainly would be room enough if the new Poetry Room drew as few people as the old one did. The librarians, however, are afraid that with the Poetry Room in a more convenient location than in the Widener, indifference might give way to curiosity and traffic would become thicker. If this happens, and it is not likely, then perhaps Radcliffe might have limited use of the records during the times when the records will not be available to Harvard men in the morning, for instance.

If extra charges are incurred, Radcliffe could pay them. That arrangement would not be fully satisfactory, but would be better than nothing. Use of the Woodberry Poetry Room is not necessarily a legal right of Radcliffe, but it certainly is a favor which can be granted with little inconvenience to the library system or to Harvard students.