Library Staff Raise Concerns at Panel Discussion

By Dan Dou and Samuel Y. Weinstock, CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Published: Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Jennifer S Shi

Janet Katz, a senior research librarian at the Harvard Law School Library, speaks about the recent cost-cutting measures at Harvard libraries. She was one of the speakers at the Harvard Forum on the Future of Libraries on Tuesday.

At a panel discussion on the reorganization of Harvard’s library system, faculty members and library staff members voiced many of the concerns pertaining to librarians’ job security, the future quality of the library system, and communication and commitment from Mass. Hall that have all plagued the reorganization effort since the January announcement that the restructuring would involve staffing cuts.

During the discussion on Tuesday, University Librarian Robert C. Darnton ’60 said that there had been “a series of catastrophic misunderstandings” during the reorganization process but assured the crowd that “those of us in the library take this [dialogue] very seriously.”
He said that “the impression [among staff] that there would be sudden, brutal, [and] massive layoffs” was not true. At this point, he said, administrators “don’t have any idea of what the size of the staff will be.”

More than four weeks after announcing that the library would shrink its workforce without revealing how many workers it would cut nor how it would select them, the University offered long-time employees a voluntary retirement package in February.

History professor Lisa M. McGirr called upon the University to think beyond financial cares when making decisions about the size of the staff.

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“Harvard is, and should continue to be, more than that,” McGirr said. “Efficiency can be a good thing and doesn’t require layoffs—we should proceed with great care and caution.”

But the discussion on Tuesday covered topics beside the looming threat of involuntary layoffs which has sparked numerous protests on campus throughout the semester.

Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers Director Bill Jaeger, who was unable to attend the forum, said that he perceives the University’s message to have moved away from the subject of layoffs since the “stark announcement of January 19.”

“I think the ongoing conversation among the library staff is changing and is less concerned about avoiding layoffs and more concerned about other parts of the library organizational design that are also really important,” Jaeger said.

The conversation on Tuesday followed that tack.

Darnton acknowledged that stakeholders are concerned about service quality from the library and said he shared those worries.

“I was upset to see that services had declined in many ways,” he said.

But he said that the University’s support for the libraries has not decreased; if it had, he said, he would have resigned.

Janet Katz, a librarian on the panel, said she was specifically anxious about the cataloging of volumes in the near future.

“I know how excellent HOLLIS is,” Katz said about the library’s online catalog system, “and I just hate to think it would become any less.”

Panelist and classics professor Richard F. Thomas said he had been disappointed by the level of faculty and librarian involvement in the decision-making process thus far. “We need more than just conversations between the people who are putting [in] the system and librarians,” he said. “We need actual input from librarians who are willing to give it and have the expertise to give it. I think librarians and faculty embrace change, but that change has to be change that doesn’t diminish the quality of the libraries in all media.”

—Staff writer Dan Dou can be reached at ddou@college,harvard.edu.
—Staff writer Samuel Y. Weinstock can be reached at sweinstock@college.harvard.edu.

OH Crimson Op-Ed - A Real Dialogue on Layoffs

A Real Dialogue on Layoffs

By Rudi E. Batzell and Andrew J. Pope

Published: Monday, March 19, 2012

Two weeks ago the Graduate Student Council hosted what it called an Open Forum with Provost Alan M. Garber ’76, the administrator charged with overseeing the library restructuring and the public face of Harvard’s threatened layoffs. As a forum for a discussion, and as a space open for debate, the GSC event was a farce. Unfortunately, this failure to engage the Harvard community in a meaningful dialogue is now part of an established pattern whereby library workers, students, and community members are excluded from the decision making process at Harvard.

We call upon Garber, Library Executive Director Helen Shenton, and University President Drew G. Faust to engage students, staff, and faculty in a sustained dialogue on our libraries. Given the confusion and uncertainty surrounding the library restructuring, we urge Garber, Shenton, and Faust to pause, consider carefully the concerns of the Harvard community, and assure all workers and staff that they are vital participants in the future of our libraries. We need a firm commitment: real participation by library users and no layoffs for library workers.

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Boston Occupier article on 3/1 No Layoffs Picket

Harvard Community Protests Library Cuts

By Julie Walsh on 3/12/12 • Categorized as Local News

photo credit: Matthew Shochat

Across the country, March 1st protest actions tended to concentrate on the debt-ridden plight of students. On the snowy Thursday evening at Harvard University, the focus was somewhat different.
Fifty protesters gathered in front of Holyoke Center in Cambridge to rally against the university’s secretive, top-down handling of the restructuring of Harvard’s libraries, including plans to cut a substantial number of its 930 full-time employees. Rank-and-file members of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW) were joined by students, faculty, alumni, and participants in Occupy Boston and Occupy Harvard.

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Students Occupy Lamont Library Café

By Eliza M. Nguyen, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Published: Sunday, February 12, 2012

Parul Agarwal

Harvard University Police officers monitor the outside of Lamont Café while occupiers sit inside.

UPDATED: February 12, 2012, at 3:04 p.m.

Members of the Occupy Harvard movement parked themselves in Lamont Library Café on Sunday night, pledging to stay in the café until 10 p.m. on Friday in order to protest planned staff reductions in Harvard libraries.

More than 23 supporters of the movement gathered in the café to inaugurate the next phase of their protest, the first to involve a physical occupation since Harvard administrators removed the Occupy Harvard dome from the Yard on Jan. 13.

An undergraduate café employee called the Harvard University Police Department to report the protest, according to an email to café workers obtained by The Crimson.

Police officers arrived on the scene and asked the protesters to remove the banners and signs that they had hung in the café’s windows, according to protester Andrew J. Pope, a doctoral student in history

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“Harvard’s free speech policy protects students’ rights to express themselves on campus,” Pope said.
Pope said that a night supervisor employed by the library told HUPD that the staff supports Occupy Lamont and that the protesters’ actions did not break any library rules.

HUPD could not be reached for comment on Sunday night.

“I hope it makes people aware that the Occupy movement is ongoing, and it’s building toward the future,” said Rudi Batzell, a doctoral student in history. “I think that the location [of the occupation] here is important, especially with ongoing library restructuring. It’s a show of solidarity with the library staff.”

On Sunday, Occupy Harvard also hosted an Occupy Boston Student Summit in Emerson Hall, which was attended by over 80 students from 18 campuses in the Boston area. In Lamont, occupiers chatted with summit attendees by Skype.

Protesters say that the purpose of the new occupation, which they call the “New Harvard Library Occupation,” aligns with the goals of the national Occupy movement that began in September.
“It’s a different movement, but a continuation of the same ideals,” Pope said.

Batzell added, “I hope that it will raise awareness that the Occupy movement is alive and growing. I hope it will connect the local struggle of library layoffs to larger issues of inequality and workers rights globally.”

Protesters said they will give out candy, offer tutoring services, and host twice-daily think tanks to include other Harvard students in their activism efforts.

“The hope is to build relationships with the broader Harvard community, including undergrads and workers, and engage with them in different ways,” Pope said.

Students plan to continue the occupation until Lamont Library, which is open 24 hours a day on weekdays, closes at 10 p.m. at the end of the week.

—Jane Seo and David Song contributed to the reporting of this article.
—Staff writer Eliza M. Nguyen can be reached at enguyen@college.harvard.edu