Book Return

THE TRANSFER of all of Lamont's and Widener's science books to the new library in the Undergraduate Science Center may not inconvenience anyone, but the removal of Hilles's entire science collection certainly does. The extra footsteps required to get to the new library from the River Houses are negligible, and at any rate, many of the Harvard House libraries carry sufficient volumes of scientific information to make a walk to another library unnecessary.

But the Radcliffe Houses do not have individual House libraries and the new requirement that Quadrangle residents trek three-quarters of a mile for the most basic scientific data is just one more example of the mistreatment to which Quad residents have become accustomed. The inequity is even more unjust given the inordinately large numbers of science concentrators who live at Radcliffe.

Science faculty members concede they suggested titles of volumes to be housed in the centralized science library without considering from where the books were to come. The concept of a centralized science library may be a nice idea, but such a facility needn't exist at the expense of an otherwise good liberal arts library that was established expressly to serve 1200 students living nearby.

The books that were taken from Hilles and moved to the Undergraduate Science Center should be returned immediately to their rightful owners.