Reference Catalogues and Washrooms

Washroom proximity, beauty, and financial veracity are all currently being tossed about in one of the bitterest faculty squabbles in years. Keyes D. Metcalf, head librarian, wants to merge the upstairs Widener public catalogue (Widener, Lamont, Houghton, and Deposit books listed by author, title, and subject) with the downstairs Union catalogue (90 percent of all University books listed by author only). He also wants the charge desk moved downstairs.

This, Metcalf said, should cost $110,000 and save $12,000 annually. Further, having only one catalogue would mean far greater convenience for scholars who now have to run up and downstairs to cross-check the two catalogues.

But a large group of the faculty has been against the whole thing right from the start. A petition has circulated asking Provost Buck to put the question on the faculty meeting agenda. Buck complied and the subsequent gatherings were among the most spirited on record. Professors who rarely attended seldom contributed to faculty meetings showed up in force. "This was the first time I ever spoke at a faculty meeting," one senior professor commented afterwards.

Opponents of the merger say that Metcalf has underestimated the cost and overestimated the saving involved. Others say that the downstairs catalogue room is a far less picturesque place in which to look up books than the ornately-pillared upstairs catalogue room.

One professor demonstrated that a ground floor charge desk would actually be inconvenient to the stacks. While there are ten stack levels and the widener first floor corresponds to the fifth level, the professor pointed out that the seventh or eighth levels are the center of convenience. The washrooms are here.

Out of all the chaos, however, one thing is sure. The Metcalf merger will be a great blow to the nation's security in the event of a general mobilization. Harvard's scholars will grow soft if deprived, of their daily interfloor chugging to cross-check catalogue references.