Library Budgets Force Student Job Cuts

Fiscal belt-tightening measures in College and House libraries have hurt the job prospects of students looking for employment among the stacks.

As the Houses contend with a University mandate to cut their budgets by 25 percent, some libraries are preferentially hiring students on work-study, whose wages are subsidized by the federal government.

In Kirkland, for example, though applications poured in earlier this year—according to Kirkland House library tutor Allison K. Rone ’06, about 60 students applied—the House could not afford to accommodate as many undergraduates who did not qualify for federal work-study as in past years.

All the Kirkland undergraduates who were newly hired this year to work in the library participate in federal work-study. The number of library employees has also fallen from 13 to 10.

“It’s been the most prominent cost-cutting initiative visible in the House,” said Kirkland library supervisor Joshua C. Feblowitz ’09.

Before the University began mandating sweeping budget cuts across its constituent schools, the central library system paid these students, but now, the Houses’ budgets foot the bill, Rone said. She said this has forced her to reduce students’ hours and has prevented her from raising their pay.

The Kirkland library has also had to slash 20 hours of service a week, according to Rone, and is now closed on Fridays. The cutbacks have made Kirkland House Masters Tom and Verena Conley “angry,” Rone said.

Quincy House has reduced the need for student library employees by instituting an electronic swipe access system.

In the Mather House library, students are still hired based on merit rather than financial considerations, according to library tutor Joseph S. Ronayne ’92, but the number of salaried library personnel may be pared down in the future.

College libraries outside the Houses have had to take similar steps to cut costs.

“We will have to reduce our budget by 15 percent and plan for an additional 16 percent reduction over the next two fiscal years,” Harvard College Library spokeswoman Beth Brainard said.

Much like Kirkland library, the Quad library has given work-study students priority, according to Chika A. Okoro ’11. Okoro is on the advisory board of the Student Organization Center at Hilles, where the Quad library is located.

She said that the hiring restrictions made the employment process more difficult, as the library is “barely staffed as it is.”

—Staff writer Bita M. Assad can be reached at bassad@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Ahmed N. Mabruk can be reached at amabruk@fas.harvard.edu.