Library Offices May Relocate; Workers Protest

In the latest showdown between University administrators and union employees, a group of librarians at Widener Library have gone public this week with their outrage over the prospect that they may be forced to relocate to a newly acquired building in Central Square.

Thirty-one technical services staff members have penned an "Open Letter to the Harvard Community" in which they say that 60 to 100 of the library's 250 employees "are being forced by the University to vacate the building within the next year" and move to Harvard-owned offices in Central Square.

The employees--whose work involves everything from transferring rare documents to microfilm to ordering and cataloguing recent materials--fear that moving off-campus will hurt the quality of their work and negatively impact the students and faculty they serve.

"We're very concerned that the community--students, faculty and visitors--won't have access to a lot of us who do the work, the ordering the receiving," said Karen O'Brien, a library assistant in the German division of the collection development.

"They get the best help from us. Reference doesn't have specific knowledge of specific knowledge areas so a lot of professors come straight to us," added O'Brien, who is also a representative to the Harvard Union for Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW), the library staff's union.

Larsen Librarian of Harvard College Nancy M. Kline, who oversees the Harvard College Library system said yesterday that no final decisions about relocating workers have been made.

"There are a whole variety of factors that need to be carefully explored," Kline said. "We've been working a lot with the HUCTW leadership on this set of issues so that we can address the concerns of employees."

But in an e-mail message sent by Kline to library employees, she wrote that "an initial move is planned that is expected to include Widener Cataloguing Services and parts of End-Processing and Collection Development."

"Although these units are being considered for the initial move, other operations in HCL may eventually be involved," she added.

In a later e-mail message to employees, Kline amended her earlier statement, writing that the first message "referenced units that were likely candidates for an initial move...this announcement of the units may have been premature."

Still, long-time library employees have rushed to voice their frustration with the relocation plans.

"Basically, this place is up in arms," said Library Assistant Ed Dupree yesterday afternoon. "Everybody that I've talked to or have heard about agrees that it's just going to screw up the library's workings."

Margo Webster, a library assistant in Widener's serial records division, voiced similar displeasure with the prospects of being moved away from the stacks.

"We are used to being able to get up from our desks and research any problem that comes up right then and there. There are countless volumes that we need access to," Webster said.

While Kline admits that the Central Square offices are not an ideal situation, she does not believe that the relocation of the offices to Central Square will disrupt services.

"We already have the challenge of working with 11 major libraries on campus," Kline said. "It's always simpler to have everything under one roof. But we haven't had the College libraries under one roof in decades."

According to Donene Williams, treasurer of HUCTW, a union management committee that she chairs--known as the Technical Services Workgroup--already has been established to study the potential move's impact on workers and to negotiate with the administration.

In the meantime, some employees say that they have been inconvenienced simply to provide more office space inside Widener for top library administrators and professors.

"Nothing is very definite," said Dupree, "but what we've heard is that some faculty members will get office space in Widener and it's also generally assumed among the union members that the suits will take over and have plush new spaces."

Kline disagreed, saying the current renovations will result in a reshuffling of offices throughout the building, particularly to address issues of "safety and egress."

The decisions about who will stay and who will go depends on each operating unit's demonstrated need to be in close proximity to the actual stacks--a study of which is currently ongoing, according to Kline.

The amount of space taken up by professors requesting studies and office space of library administrators within Widener "is a very small factor," she added.

Still, employees like Dupree and O'Brien say they are being strong-armed by a University intent on streamlining jobs.

"[The administration has] been talking about centralized technical services across College libraries," O'Brien said. "They're looking for ways to perhaps consolidate--which they are avoiding coming out and saying will result in job loss. We're very skeptical and afraid about that."

Kline argued that the library administration is not aiming to place employees at a disadvantage.

"Change does come, even at Harvard, and we're going to try and make a good as process and get as many people involved as we can," she said.