Collegiate Times

Library copes with budget cuts, faces calls for change

After receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in stimulus funds, Newman Library faces a new year of diverse challenges.

In the spring of 2009, Newman received a $300,000 increase in its budget as part of Virginia Tech’s $17.3 million federal stimulus package. The extra funding spared Newman from the university-wide five percent decrease in spending last year.

Donald Kenney, associate dean of administrative services at the library, as well as other administrative staff have used a small portion of this increase in capital to build Newman’s cafe study lounge, which should be finished this semester.

The goal of the lounge is to “create an additional space for students,” Kenney said.

However, most of the stimulus money was allocated to improving collections at Newman. Library staff eliminated unnecessary and rarely utilized collections and put more money toward collections that undergraduates make use of frequently.

“We want to focus on undergraduates and research needs,” Kenney said.

Despite being widely utilized by the Tech community, demands for improvements from both students and administrators persist.

The most recent publication of rankings by the Association of Research Libraries ranked Newman 100 out of 107 for overall funding. To improve its ranking, Newman staff is spending money on improving collections, services and access to the library.

As a cost-cutting measure, library staff has considered dropping periodicals because of their
expense.

“We recently cut back on subscriptions to the print collection because they overlapped with various electronic venues,” Kenney said.

Laura Nixon, a junior English major, goes to the library approximately four or five days each week because “it’s a lot better than studying at home and less depressing than the Math Empo.”

However, she has difficulty finding an open area for her homework and suggests Newman invest in more computers. She rarely uses any library services, including copying because it is “too expensive.”

“I use (Newman) pretty often when I’m starting on a new research project and I use their online databases from home a lot to search for articles,” said Laura Agnich, sociology professor and graduate student.

Agnich utilizes the Interlibrary Loan service, but has had negative experiences in other areas of the library. Many of the social science journal subscriptions that she used were recently canceled.

However, the library was fortunate in 2009 because of the stimulus package. For example, it maintained its 102 weekly operating hours and avoided any staffing alterations.

“We just hope that the budget does not cause us to have to reassess these areas,” Kenney said.

The library, however, does not currently have definitive backup plans in the event that it face further cuts, with administrators hoping to receive similar financial support — a number dependent on future university and state funding.

This funding will determine to what extent Newman can address some of the complaints of its users such as Nixon and Agnich. For example, Nixon believes that more maps on the walls could help students navigate the library, while Agnich still gets lost after nine years at Tech.

“It serves its function, but it’s not a place that I like to go do work or have meetings,” Agnich said.

Sara McDonough, a graduate student in sociology, compares Newman to the College of William & Mary’s Earl Gregg Swem Library, where she completed her undergraduate work. That facility includes a print center as well as a 24-hour coffee shop and cafe.

“It was a joy to be there — it was beautiful and everybody wanted to go there to sit and do work,” McDonough said. In contrast, she describes Newman: “It’s cold, there’s no carpet, it feels sterile and there’s no ambiance to do work there.”