Library will not cut student jobs or reduce hours

The University library system is reducing its operational costs and freezing its acquisition budget but will not reduce its hours or lay off any student employees, University Librarian Karin Trainer said in an e-mail.

These changes reflect the library’s efforts to meet the University’s requirement that all departments cut their budgets by an average of 7.5 percent this year and another 7.5 percent next year.Changes in operational costs include a reduction in spending on supplies, travel and entertainment, as well as less frequent replacement of desktop computers, Trainer added.

The Library will also be reducing its spending on some types of binding, renegotiating agreements with suppliers and eliminating the print copies of some journal subscriptions to which it also subscribes electronically.

Besides trimming its budget, the library system is also drawing on funds it saved last year when library staffers “saw that the economic downturn might have a significant impact on funding this year,” Trainer said.

“We are happy to report that the library’s acquisitions budget has not been cut,” Trainer said, noting that the budget has been frozen at last year’s level. “Because inflation in scholarly publishing — both in print and digital form — continues to be a problem for libraries, we are taking a number of special steps to stretch our frozen dollars.”

“Our pace of acquisitions this year probably won’t be as brisk as last year but will be more like our acquisitions pace four or five years ago,” she said.

Engineering and plasma physics librarian Adriana Popescu said in an e-mail that the pace of acquisitions in Engineering and Plasma Physics collections is “comparable to previous years.”

Trainer added that the Library is “still putting the finishing touches on our plans to run the library with a small budget for staff.” She also noted that “20 percent of the most experienced library staff chose to take advantage of the University’s special retirement plan.”

Student employees of the library system will not be affected by the cuts, Trainer said.

“I want to emphasize that the library, one of the largest employers of students on campus, is making no reductions in the student budget,” she said.

None of the library branches will cut costs by shortening their hours of operation, Trainer said.

“We know that students do a lot of studying and research late at night,” she explained.

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Earlier this month, the Library system, in conjunction with the Office of Information Technology, announced another cost-saving measure: a year-long pilot printing quota system. This quota began on Oct. 15 and limits undergraduates to 2,100 sheets of paper and graduate students to 3,000 sheets in printing clusters.

“The Library and OIT must meet the goal of a [20 percent] reduction in printing over the coming year, and the quota system enables students to play an active role in helping us adjust to the new budget realities,” Deputy University Librarian Marvin Bielawski and Office of Information Technology senior manager Leila Shahbender said in the e-mail to the undergraduate student body.