Lamontmanship

For the last ten years, patrons of learning have enjoyed Lamont Library. Its 10-15,000 reserve books include the most important reading in undergraduate courses, while the building itself provides space for over 1,000 students. At casual glance, the facilities offered by Lamont seem ample.

Yet Lamont, as operated under its current policies, is not sufficient to meet undergraduate needs. During Reading and Examination periods especially, seats are difficult to locate and books even more difficult to obtain, mostly due to the inadequate reserve book system.

The craft of "Lamontmanship" arises precisely from this inadequacy. At nine in the morning, a practitioner of the craft arises, renews the book he checked out the evening before, hides it somewhere in the stacks or on a desk during the day, and returns briefly in the evening to do the reading. As a result, book turn-over in Lamont is reduced far below optimum levels. By 10 in the morning, all copies of a certain reserve book may be circulating in the library, although none of them may be in use.

To remedy this low turn-over of books and to help reduce crowding, a new reserve system should be instituted. Books could be checked out three times per day--perhaps at 9 a.m., 3 p.m., and 9 p.m.--so that students would not be confined to Lamont itself as a study area. To facilitate the operation of this system, reserve books would be due back at Desk 3 and Desk 1 thirty minutes before the start of the next check-out period.

Other libraries, such as the Radcliffe Library, already use a system of this type with great success. After a decade of generally successful operation, Lamont and its policies should be examined--and one of the most fruitful changes could come in the reserve system.