New Rules to Boot Book Pilferers From College

Next year's parietal rules will specify severance of connection for all people who "remove books from any University library without authorization," Dean Bender revealed last night.

This will not be a new regulation, but a formalizing of administrative policy that has always been followed in respect to such offenders, Bender added. Its inclusion in the printed rules was approved Arts and Sciences, which must vote renewal of the parietal rules each year.

The immediate reason for the step is the great increase in book-stealing which occurred earlier this year. "Eight or nine" students were brought up before the Administrative Board for taking books this year, Philip J. McNiff, director of Lamont Library, said last night. Five of the offenders had been found with Lamont books.

Stealing Decreases

Recently, the stealing has fallen off sharply. McNiff attributes this largely to publicity given the cases where students were dismissed. He hopes that the inclusion of the penalty in the printed rules that are distributed to all students will have a similar effect in discouraging offenses.

In addition to publicizing penalties, Lamont also moved many of its books behind the closed reserve desks and instituted a 75-cent fine for overdue books this term in an effort to curb stealing, late return, and hiding of books. McNiff has expressed disappointment that the open shelf system of Lamont did not work so well as he had hoped.

At the dedication of Lamont in January, 1949, Provost Buck said: "Our worser selves have had little confidence in the capacity of man to solve his fate, have treated our students as though they were children, and so have sought to substitute for free inquiry, discipline and restraint."

He also affirmed that Lamont marked a return to the belief that education is based on unrestricted access to all that humanity has thought and experienced.