Plan To Merge Three Libraries Not Popular

Three Washington State University libraries are on the chopping block as the school plans to make systemwide budget cuts.

Library officials have recommended closing the Brain Education Library, the Architecture Library and the Fischer Agricultural Sciences Library on the Pullman campus to trim about $229,000 from WSU’s library budget. The cuts would eliminate 10 jobs.

The collections from the three libraries would be moved into the massive Holland Library in the center of campus and the Owen Science and Engineering Library.

“It’s hard, there’s no question about it,” said Nancy Baker, WSU’s outgoing director of libraries. “Here are the cards we’ve been dealt and this is the best we can do.”

However, faculty, staff and students hope to convince university officials they can do better.

A petition is circulating in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences in the College of Agriculture and Home Economics, stressing the importance of the Fischer Library and the need to keep it open.

“It’s extremely important to us,” said Jim Harsh, a crop and soil sciences professor. “I’m trying really hard to keep the library here and I hope they will find another place to cut.”

While the agriculture materials would be moved into the Owen Library, the inconvenience to agriculture students would be great, he said.

“It’s on the other side of campus,” he said.

Michael Landers, a library technician at the Fischer Library, faces losing his job. His position is among those proposed for elimination.

“There’s a mix of anxiety, anger and a feeling of betrayal,” said Landers. “I think there’s a perception that the university has cut and cut for years now and nobody has really looked for a creative solution to keep us funded.”

Landers also is an architecture student.

“Suddenly a trip downstairs to the library turns into a 15-minute trip to the big library where it will take you about 10 times longer to find everything once you get in the door,” he said.

Baker said the decision to close the three smaller libraries came after hours of deliberation by library administrators and staff. They decided that equal cuts at each of the six campus libraries would have done more damage.

“You don’t want six facilities open 8 to 5, Monday through Friday,” she said. “We are trying to avoid a lot of mediocrity all over.”

As library director, Baker has overseen 11 libraries and an $11.2 million budget. The five other WSU libraries, located at its branch campuses outside of Pullman, are not being affected by the cuts.

Baker announced recently that she has accepted a job at the University of Iowa, and will be leaving her post at WSU in mid-June.

“When you’re going out the door after nine years, you’d like to leave looking at the good things,” she said. “The timing of this is tough.”

Landers said he finds the timing of her departure troubling.

“I’m personally upset that she can make these decisions and won’t have to live with the consequences,” Landers said.

WSU’s library system experienced deep cuts in 1993-94, and has been under added strain since a voter-approved series of minimum wage hikes in 1998, Baker said.

Of the library budget cuts, $166,000 represents the libraries’ share of universitywide cuts. Meanwhile, the remaining $63,000 being trimmed will offset the majority of an added $69,000 in costs from another minimum wage increase.