Save Saturday!

It’s Saturday, and I am writing this in Starbucks. I had to arrive early to fight my way to a counter space between that homeless-looking guy in the bomber jacket and the two TFs who like to grade papers in total, ominous silence over their cappuccinos. To those of you who spend your Saturdays in the airy, mostly sweet-smelling spaces of Lamont Café or the Widener Stacks, never needing to elbow anyone more threatening than a group of Weld freshmen in order to secure yourself a spot: Don’t smirk and fold your arms complacently. This could be you sooner than you think.

In a recent memo to library staff, Elizabeth Johnson, chief of staff for the librarian of Harvard College, noted that the entire Harvard College Library system is contemplating shutting its doors on Saturdays, due to budget cuts.
This is a terrible idea on a number of levels, and it is just one more in a series of cost-cutting measures that hit students hardest. From freezing faculty salaries, offering buyouts to Harvard’s longest-standing employees, and serving chicken nuggets twice a week, Harvard is hitting students below the belt. Harvard may be saving money, but at what cost? Granted, this university has never been famed for its fine cuisine, but its gifted faculty, dedicated staff, and world-renowned library system have played a great part in making Harvard the institution it is today. Besides, wandering through the Widener stacks is like dating an undergraduate: something that requires special permission unless you are an undergraduate.

Besides the problems this poses for thesis writers and others who need access to Harvard’s extensive collections on weekends, closing the libraries on Saturdays is exactly the opposite of how Harvard should respond to the crisis. We are going to be out in the real world dealing with the challenges of the economy in a year or two. Instead of taking away one seventh of our access to the treasures of the Harvard library system—the largest academic library in the world—Harvard should be shoving us through those imposing Widener doors. There is so much knowledge in the Harvard library system that there must be a solution to the financial crisis buried in there somewhere, probably between the back issues of “Playboy” and that mysterious book entitled “Privies Galore” that I’ve had to retrieve from the depository twice. Widener has everything—Henry James’s “Wings of a Dove,” the “Wings of a Dove” DVD, and several tomes on bird wings throughout history. This is the kind of knowledge that we need to be able to immerse ourselves in before we graduate, so that when future crises arise we can face them with aplomb and a withering quip from Voltaire. Also, Widener has a surprisingly excellent DVD collection, and for those of us who let our Netflix lapse—we’re in a crisis!—the loss of Saturdays puts a real damper on movie nights.

As someone who has worked behind the Widener desk for the past two years, I can definitively state that Widener’s collection is both broad and deep. What other library has the personal effects of Emily Dickinson and some book called “The Tao of Poop”? Harvard should be giving its students more opportunities to think great thoughts without being interrupted by calls for grande lattes, not fewer. If the people who designed our current economic system had been denied the opportunity to access Widener on Saturdays, we would probably be bartering.

Besides the academic ramifications of closing the library, there are also pressing social ramifications. Saturday is the only day people can check off the Widener box without the nagging guilt of unfinished assignments. Unlike Primal Scream, which happens but once a year, Widener was always there for us. But now we’ll have to plan our assignations around its budget cuts. And for people who rely on BoredatLamont for their romantic interactions, Saturday nights just got a lot lonelier. Everyone will have to find other places to do those things we always do in libraries, like having free wireless access and not sleeping.

The man occupying the other side of my Starbucks counter just started softly singing “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” This would never happen at Lamont.


Alexandra A. Petri ’10 is an English and classics concentrator living in Eliot House. Her column appears on alternate Fridays.