Hello everyone,
Sunny and 75 degrees—looks like spring is really here. Graduation isn’t far behind, and we can hope for a peaceful and not-too-hot summer.
Some questions have come my way since our last budget forum, so I thought it would be best to answer them for everyone. The first question is, “why are we going ahead with searches when we are in a budget crunch?” The answer to that one is that we have to try to maintain our core activities and keep pursuing our first library goal, of being more central to instruction and research, even with a decreased budget. We are emphasizing outreach and having librarians working with faculty and students. That explains how important it is to fill the Engineering Librarian position and the Head of Instruction positions.
The Assistant Director for Special Collections, Archives and Rare Books (SCARaB) can be an important position for outreach also, but more importantly that position has been re-designed to also have Digital Services and Preservation responsibilities, as well as having the emphasis of the position shifted from Archives to Special Collections. Our second library goal is “To assure the quality, diversity and preservation of our library collections for the campus and the wider academic community.” The Special Collections areas of research libraries are to a great extent what distinguish one library collection from another. Many libraries have the same general resources we do, all purchased from the same vendors. What other libraries don’t have is the unique things we have in all the areas of SCARaB. What we do with those resources, and how we preserve and digitize all of our unique holdings, are essential parts of the mission of a research library. Some may argue that those functions are less important than serving our science researchers, but I disagree, as would most of our humanities faculty on campus, and most librarians across the academic world. Rare books tend to attract attention and big donors, two things our libraries need more of, as well as being the icons that excite and attract students to more traditional humanities studies and book arts. I don’t have to tell you all how important digital projects are to the future of libraries, and how much we need to more forward from the days of microfilm. These are all reasons that the SCARaB position is a high priority to fill in our current situation. The area has much unrealized potential, and we need a leader to move it forward. We cannot afford not to develop our rare and special collections, and we cannot afford not to move more aggressively in digitization.
Another question that has come forward is “Why are we not talking about furloughs rather than losing more staff positions?” That is a harder question; the HR people say furloughs are very expensive to implement, and don’t save enough money to justify all the extra work they create. Problems arise with leave accrual, bargaining unit contracts, health coverage etc. One administrator describes them as “morale-destroyers” that are exceptionally rough on employees that are on the lesser end of the pay scales. Other states also report that furloughs caused more trouble than they were worth. So currently, MU is not looking at them for cost savings.
A comment, rather than a question, that often comes up is “Why is this happening? We need to fire all the administrators! Or cut everyone’s pay until they ___________ (fill in the blank)” I think we’ve seen in the last few years that firing administrators can actually cause more confusion and make things worse, and based on their contracts, may not even save money. So while reducing the number of administrators can work, extreme measures in this area also don’t really fix anything.
We have to keep moving toward our goals and maintaining our collection for future students and researchers whatever our resources. We’ve had bad times before, and we have to get through this round the best that we can. The Libraries will still be here in 100 more years and we want them to reflect good decisions on our part. What will they say about us? I can just imagine a sentence in the next library history about the “mid-twenty-first century financial struggles.”
Thanks for all your hard work and dedication as we go through yet another round of budget cuts. Keep your questions coming!
Ann