Libraries Face Possible Changes

Seven months after its creation, a task force chaired by University Provost Steven E. Hyman is poised to recommend fundamental changes to Harvard’s library system this semester, with an eye toward cutting costs and centralizing its administrative structure.

Though the University Library Task Force’s preliminary recommendations remain vague, representatives identified establishing and implementing “a shared administrative infrastructure” and more efficiently acquiring materials for “a single University collection” at an open meeting Friday where Hyman was not present.

“One of the significant findings of the task force is that the decentralized structure is one of the problems that the library system is facing at the present,” said Divinity School Professor David C. Lamberth, who chaired one of the task force’s four subcommittees.

But the prospect of consolidation has some librarians and humanities professors concerned about the future of the libraries, which have already suffered from layoffs, buyouts, and hour reductions.

Harvard College Library reduced its work force by roughly 100 employees this year—after 20 staff layoffs, 52 voluntary retirements, the elimination of 20 open job positions, and a reduction in work hours for several others—impacting not only front-desk staffers, but also librarians who acquire new books.

And while acquisition costs have ballooned with the amount of published material that is currently being produced—both digitally and in print—the libraries’ unrestricted budget has remained stagnant since the beginning of the decade, according to Classics Professor Richard F. Thomas. Now, he adds, it has been cut.

“In terms of keeping up with theJoneses, we’re supposed to be the Joneses,” said History of Art and Architecture Professor Jeffrey F. Hamburger—an outspoken regular at Faculty meetings—who said he is concerned that Yale and Princeton may now have higher rates of acquisition than Harvard. “[The library] is one of the few things that makes Harvard what it is in a meaningful sense.”

University spokesman Kevin Galvin—who answered questions by e-mail on Hyman’s behalf—wrote that it is “too early” to rule out whether some libraries may close as a result of restructuring.

“I think it would be a mistake for us to be saying there’s no chance that there will be fewer independent libraries at the end of this process,” said Law School Professor John G. Palfrey ’94, who chaired the task force’s subcommittee on technological futures.

In addition to recommending a shared administrative infrastructure, Lamberth and Palfrey described proposals to integrate different libraries’ IT systems, revamp the libraries’ financial model, and collaborate more with peer libraries and other institutions.

The Harvard Corporation—the University’s chief governing body—is poised to discuss the task force’s recommendations and to consider the task force’s mission statement for the libraries at their next meeting, according to Harvard University Library Director Robert C. Darnton ’60.

Hyman is also planning to soon appoint librarians and professors to implement the final proposal.

Palfrey pointed both to current financial constraints and the longer-term need to modernize Harvard’s library system as the impetus for reviewing the library system now.

Galvin wrote in an e-mailed statement that even before the financial crisis, “it was generally recognized that the Schools and the libraries must work together more closely to address the research needs of students and faculty.”

Now, he wrote, the plunge in the endowment has heightened the need to “consider the benefits of a shared administrative structure.”

But some faculty members remain concerned that the libraries will benefit little from potential structural changes.

“I in fact don’t think the Corporation understands what is happening here at all in many ways,” said Thomas, the classics professor, at Friday’s meeting, expressing concern that restructuring the library system now may be used as an excuse for deeper staff cuts at the libraries.

Hamburger, the history of art and architecture professor, added that he finds the current pace of acquisition to be already worrisome. He says he keeps a list of titles in his field of research which the library “for some reason or another has failed to purchase,” and that over the past decade, that list has grown at an ever-rising rate—now to at least 100 books per year.

—Staff writer Bonnie J. Kavoussi can be reached at kavoussi@fas.harvard.edu