Collegiate Times

The notion of cutting funding from the university library is one that should seem completely ridiculous to the student body. While numbers can be crunched and calculated to see how this churns out in the budget, as discussed in the March 19 editorial of this paper, the fact that our library is "at the bottom of the national spectrum" is practically unforgivable. If anything, there should be additional funding for the library in order to maintain and expand its resources.

Hell, if we can afford to expand McComas Gym, have one of the top dining facility programs in the nation, and fund diversity programs out of the ying-yang, it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to realize that the library should take precedence over the rest of these university initiatives. I'm just not saying this for students in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences either: The library has an array of resources large enough to be useful for any major. That the university is considering slashing its funds shows just how under-utilized Newman Library really is on campus.

Sure, I might be going off anecdotal evidence here, but it seems like hardly any students actually go in the library to study, check out books or take advantage of any of the many benefits that accompany such a place. It just seems like a shame that our library is not held in enough high regard by the populace and administration of Virginia Tech that there hasn't been an upswelling of commotion over this. Though I compliment the editorial board for confronting this issue head on, this runs deeper than a monetary conflict on the part of the administration; this is a failure to foster academic efficacy at Virginia Tech. By throwing additional money behind recreational programs the wrong message is being sent out That it's OK to forego learning, at a place of learning no less, for other activities. The library is a huge symbol of university life, and what does it say about our university if the place is decaying? I can at least tell you that if it's supposed to be indicative of the future, that isn't a future I'd like to see invented, much less brought about while the rest of our facilities improve.

What this really boils down to is the university experience. We didn't just come here to eat, drink, exercise and otherwise do nothing of importance while living in Blacksburg. We (hopefully) came here to get an education and be steeped in the tradition of collegiate learning that so many former students at Virginia Tech have participated in. What student who's spent four years of undergraduate education at a university can't recall an evening where the infamous "all-nighter" had to be pulled at the library? There are numerous other facets to the college life, but learning is the most crucial of all of them, and the library supports that idea.

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