Books, Not Bureaucracy

RESERVE READING? Whether they've used it once or a hundred times, students know that the phrase doesn't mean efficiency. For many, reserve reading has become synonymous with trudging over to Lamont--often the night before the midterm--only to find that the book isn't on reserve yet.

The reserve system is clearly a crucial service for many students. Reserve copies of course books provide students with an alternative to spending hundreds of dollars at the Coop. Moreover, insuring that a few students do not tie up a limited number of library books is an effective plan. Or it was until the Harvard libraries got involved.

Lamont and Hilles require professors to get their reading lists in two months before the semester begins--a rule, it appears, that was made to be broken. And because the libraries place all reserve requests in a queue, each request has an automatic lag time of at least a month.

Library paper work helps slow the process to a snail's pace. Once a professor's list reaches the head of the line, it takes the libraries an additional week of bureaucracy to fill out all the appropriate cards and actually put the book on the reserve shelf.

Even when books don't come in on time at the Coop--a real emergency for students--the libraries continue to drag their feet. If the books missing from the Coop weren't on the professor's original reserve request list--as to be expected--then the new request goes to the end of the line, and the books don't show up for weeks or months.

It just so happens that Harvard is spending $1.2 million on a new library computer system to computerize the card catalogue. Unfortunately, only librarians can use it at present, and there are no definite plans to use the computers to reorganize the reserve system.

What good are 10 million books if you can't read them when you need them? Harvard libraries ought to be able to shuffle papers a little more quickly and get reserve books on the right shelf at the right time. Use that $1.2 million computer system to speed up an agonizingly slow process that presents a serious obstacle to getting a Harvard education.