This commentary is by Nita Karpf, evening circulation supervisor at the Calvin Coolidge Library at Castleton University.
I am writing about the recent “refined” plan (March 9) for the future of Vermont State University libraries, especially as it affects Castleton University.
Several years ago, after decades of teaching at colleges and universities, my husband and I decided to retire and we moved to Castleton. One of the major reasons for our choice of location? The presence of a university-level library.
During my career, I have served on accreditation review committees and I am familiar with the requirements institutions must fulfill in order to retain their academic status. If VSU’s administration follows through with its “refined” plan, the Castleton University library will become a glorified study lounge and cybercafe, albeit with a skeletal collection of books.
This is in no way worthy of accreditation as a university, or even as a college.
The future of any state rests, in part, with the quality of its educational system. Yet, Vermont’s high school graduates will have little reason to seek a college education in-state if the institutions’ libraries offer so little in resources. Students will simply go out-of-state for degrees, resulting in increasingly unsatisfactory recruitment efforts and catastrophic retention losses for VSU.
How can a state that claims to care about its future college students exert so little effort to ensure that only the very best in education is provided for them, in-state?
Another component of the “refined” plan, of paramount concern, is the proposed abandonment of the Interlibrary Loan system. Nearly all libraries, from academic institutions to tiny facilities in rural communities, utilize this resource. It is a system through which all participating libraries may loan items in their collections to patrons at other libraries. But, it is a reciprocal system, requiring that its participants both loan and borrow from all member collections. If VSU rescinds its participation in the Interlibrary Loan system, all students, staff and faculty will have lost an absolutely vital library service.
The conjecture that digitized resources will, somehow, fill the gaps imposed by the cancellation of Interlibrary Loan services and a dearth of books on library shelves is absolutely ludicrous. Simply stated, most recently published books are not available in digital format, free of charge. In fact, they’re often prohibitively expensive and would require VSU institutions to purchase very costly subscriptions in order to access them online. This is especially true for textbooks in math, the sciences, and medically-related courses of study.
To require students to rent or purchase digital resources violates the spirit of providing Vermont’s students with total accessibility to instructional and research materials in their institution’s libraries. Can we, in good conscience, therefore, deprive our students of these essential resources?
I would also make this appeal to VSU faculty: Please, as often as possible, give out assignments to your students that require them to use resources that can be accessed only in their institution’s library. And I don’t mean digital sources, but books on shelves, reference materials and the marvelous and rich collections of in-print periodicals.
In all our impassioned debating about the future of Vermont State University, let us not forget the namesake of Castleton University’s library — Calvin Coolidge. In 1931, Coolidge wrote of books as an invaluable and “permanent repository of knowledge and culture.” In fact, he considered libraries to be “a public service of the first importance.” How true, timeless and prescient a remark.
We have an obligation to honor the value Coolidge placed on libraries, and to continue to fund unobstructed access to all their print resources.
And finally, National Library Week, April 23-29, is fast approaching. Can we possibly see our way to assembling some sort of agreement about the future of VSU’s libraries by the time this significant week is upon us? Wouldn’t it be lovely to celebrate our college and university libraries as the sustainable and beloved resources that they are, rather than spending the week all too aware that these treasured institutions are about to be dismantled ?
Accordingly, I ask that this latest “refined” proposal regarding the future of VSU’s libraries be tabled. Permanently. Let’s agree to sit down and talk, and take the necessary time to come to a reasonable solution, one that puts student needs first.
To do the matter justice, it would seem to me that such a discussion should continue, say, perhaps two or three years, at least. And, transparency must be followed at all points during the discussion, by all participants. As taxpayers, we owe at least this much to our high school students, and to the future of the state of Vermont.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Nita Karpf: Is a skeletal collection of books enough to earn accreditation?.