Science Books Are Back At Hilles

While radicals have yet to find a way to topple Chile's military regime, Radcliffe Quadrangle residents won a victory of their own this week.

Just 48 hours after 100 students protested the transfer of Hilles's science collection to the Undergraduate Science Center, a University librarian promised to return or replace many of those volumes.

Tuesday night's complaint session--replete with boos and hisses for the librarians who defended the transfer and cheers and applause for students who refuted their claims--prompted the scheduling of a smaller meeting between librarians and student representatives of the three Quad Houses.

When Louis E. Martin, librarian of Harvard College, arrived at the Thursday meeting, he was equipped with a plan that all but conceded the inequities of the University's decision to move Hilles' science collection.

After ironing out a few points in the five-phase plan, students got Martin to okay still a sixth stage, a stipulation which promised that dollars for purchases of new science volumes would not come out of Hilles's budget for new acquisitions.

The compromise restores the most basic elements of the science collection to Hilles: return of Gen Ed, Nat Sci and departmental science course materials to the reserve shelves, and the replacement of other science books deemed useful by the Hilles librarian.