Afro Library Remains Open; Department Insists It's Closed

The Afro-American Studies Library remained open yesterday despite the Afro Department's insistence that the library has been closed indefinitely.

Sharon Hamby, assistant Librarian for Lamont, said yesterday that the Afro Library, located on the fifth floor of Lamont, has been open all week.

"The people who work there were surprised when The Crimson reported that the library was closed because they have opened it every day this week," she said.

However, Juanita Gibson, secretary to Ewart Guinier '33, chairman of the Afro Department, continued to insist yesterday that the library was and would continue to be closed.

When informed that the work-study students who work in the library had opened it, she said that there was "just a little misunderstanding with the students" and that the library will be closed today.

Gibson added that the Department would make no further comments about the library until it has had "a chance to straighten things out at a meeting."

"No one told me that the library was closed," Nelson Denis '76, the work-study employee who opened the library, said yesterday.

Denis said that when he called Gibson later in the afternoon she told him that he wouldn't be working until things were straightened out and that the meeting, originally scheduled for today, had been cancelled.

An Afro Department spokesman said last night, however, that the meeting for today was still scheduled.

Denis said that the biggest problems which he thinks the library faces are the lack of funds and books and the irresponsibility of some of the employees.

Hamby said earlier this week that she sometimes has to call the Afro Department to tell them that the person who was supposed to open the library did not come in.

Most of the funds for the books for the library, which opened in 1970, were raised by Albert L. Nickerson '33, a Fellow of Harvard College. Eighty per cent of the work-study students' salaries are paid by the Federal government.

Although most of the books in the library have been purchased by the Afro Department, Hamby said yesterday that about 50 of the books are on loan from Lamont.

A Department spokesman said last night that special arrangements might be made for concentrators who need to use the library for reference while it is closed.