Why not suggest that SFT use some of the $2 million or so saved from restructuring?  It has been used for everything else. 

I read somewhere that a coffee shop will be housed in the USM liberry. What more could one ask for? Besides, if a book is interesting it will eventally be made into a movie. Even books for the more serious reader, such as Woody Allen's The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, are made into movies. If you really want to improve the liberry, have them order the complete collection of Classic Comics. They are much thinner and easier to read than those dreadfully thick books. And they are in color! And not so dusty either. I did all of my term papers by reading those paperback versions and I never made less than a "C" on any of them. Well, I did make an "F" once, but that was because the teacher asked only one question: "What color is the cover on our liberry's copy of the book you have been assigned to read?" I thought that was an unfair question. I did learn that one must read the entire first and last chapters of the thick books in order to make a decent grade. If you really want to improve the liberry, tell them DVD's would help. Blockbusters has a very good liberry but it costs to check them out.

USM is sure lucky that the library won't be missed as much as it would if more students could read. The important thing to remember is that enrollment is up = more $$$$. Faculty should be working on RETENTION so that the $$$ can keep flowing in. Once faculty get these priorities straight, USM will more up to tier 3 again. STOP FLUNKING STUDENTS!!!

How about dem Eagles?

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Originally posted by: ram
"Classics Illustrated was da bomb.  Shame they all gone now."

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I always thought those little gems might have been written by moonlighting English professors. Vintage editions are still available online. I wonder if students still use them.

Speaking of these sorts of books (and completely off topic from the rest of the website), does anyone remember or have copies of the We Were There series?  It's the way I learned history at about ages 9-11.

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Originally posted by: Angeline
"Since SFT is in a generous mood having given the Faculty Senate the final word on the EEOC position, perhaps the Faculty Senate can trouble SFT to restore and increase funding to the library so that they can buy some books this year (and in the future).  SFT is still not convinced that we need a library at all, exposing his utter incompetence and unwillingness to learn about segments of the campus that rely on the library's resources for their basic research.  The library folks recently presented their dire predicament at a Cabinet meeting, but SFT told them to come up with their own funding.  Folks, if we can't get a library funded then we might as well close the doors of the university.  SFT needs to hear from his faculty about the absolute necessity of the library, especially since he seems to be in a listening mood lately.  The Senate and departments should craft position papers and appeals to SFT to fund the library and make acquisitions a priority - that's the only way things get done at USM now - you have to appeal directly to the king.  Moreover, a public appeal where we have professors in the media crying about the lack of library resources should work wonders: everyone (well, almost everyone) knows that you need a library in order to educate at the university level."

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Angeline,

I want to mention SFT's treatment of the library in Liberty and Power.  Can you tell me when this Cabinet meeting took place (approximately) or what the library needed the extra money for?

Clemson has a history of shorting the library, though obviously not to the degree that has prevailed at USM.   I guess SFT is nostalgic for the kind of library USM had back in the McCain days (as described in Exit 13).

Robert Campbell

I want to correct what may be a misperception here.  SFT has not cut the library in terms of funds to buy books and journals. The situation we are facing now is the result of many years of no increases in library funds to buy materials.  Increases in costs and the addition of academic programs with no increases in library materials funds have caught up with us.  This may mean no money for books this year and it will certainly mean continued deep cuts in journals and databases each year from now on.   

I think it is unfair to say that SFT has caused this problem, but it is a wonderful opportunity for him to fix something that is very broken and that is very important to our faculty and students. 

 

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Originally posted by: Good old days
"I don't recall anything by the name "We Were There" but I do recall an old documentary series called "You Are There."  We're already way off topic, so I'll mention one other thing. I believe that children's imagination/creativity began to go downhill when radio declined and television took over. In the days of the 15-minute radio serial, the listener had to "fill in the gaps" with visual imagination. With television, on the other hand, what you see is what you get. Somehow I believe the switch from radio to television has resulted in a cultural and creative deficit in the lives of children. "

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"What sort of a day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our time...and You Were There."

Not being a "walking antique," I don't much remember radidio shows. But I do remember the "You Are There" TV program, which was derived from the radio version. From http://www.filmlinc.com/archive/programs/1-98/youare/youare.htm:

"You Are There" was a weekly, live TV version (1953-1957) of a successful radio series (1947-1950) that attempted to faithfully reconstruct significant historical narratives-utilizing authentic primary sources and actual quotations, employing real CBS News reporters-as if they were live television events.

It has also been apparent that SFT doesn't understand that the bulk of the online indexes and databases cost money. There was an incident, last year I believe, where he (or someone else on his behalf) asked why these resources were not freely available online to everyone--some cronies were apparently upset that they couldn't log in without being USM faculty or students. (Of course they could walk into Cook and use them for free.) But Shelby had no clue that this was not possible under the liscensing agreements, since these are things we actually pay for.

Of course, there is the famous Shelby comment, "I think libraries are a thing of the past. I haven't been in one in [insert various numbers here, depending on who tells the story, but never less than 15] years." I don't know if this story is true, but I've heard it from librarians, so I think it is.

I have to add, in my typical plug for the arts and humanities, that the scientific model (that Shelby talks about)--needing the latest research available online through indexes and full-text databases--doesn't necessarily work for the humanities, where older sources, such as books, or manuscripts and archival materials, simply aren't available online. If you are a historian, you still need the old stuff. In fact, in 1998 Thomas Mann (the librarian, not the writer!) reported that even in this information age of electronic resources, the Library of Congress's book collection grows by 10,000 volumes every two weeks.

So all of this is further evidence that Shelby is completely clueless about what lots of those "world-class" faculty do and that they need books and a library to do it.

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Originally posted by: foot soldier
"I have to add, in my typical plug for the arts and humanities, that the scientific model (that Shelby talks about)--needing the latest research available online through indexes and full-text databases--doesn't necessarily work for the humanities, where older sources, such as books, or manuscripts and archival materials, simply aren't available online. If you are a historian, you still need the old stuff. In fact, in 1998 Thomas Mann (the librarian, not the writer!) reported that even in this information age of electronic resources, the Library of Congress's book collection grows by 10,000 volumes every two weeks."

One of the lessons of bibliographic history is that new technologies do not displace old ones.  We did not stop writing by hand with the invention of the printing press, and we have not stopped printing books with the advent of the internet.  But if we are going to stop archiving knowledge because we can't make it a priority to find the dollars to do so, we are virtually burning books.  We are hardly better than those who with a short-sighted and egoistic zeal piled up volumes in German cities and ignited them because they thought they had found some superior knowledge that had rendered Learning obsolete.

Indeed, it is usually those without a sense of history that believe the latest sales pitch of society, a sales pitch which these days seems to be made by the used-car salesmen of Progress and Technology and Affluence.  As C. S. Lewis said in "Learning in War-Time,"

"Most of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past.  Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion.  A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age."

My hat is off to the valiant librarians of USM, who have fought most gloriously in a struggle few will ever recognize.

NO QUARTER.

Jameela Lares

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Mr. Wonderful, I nominate the following:

But if we are going to stop archiving knowledge because we can't make it a priority to find the dollars to do so, we are virtually burning books.  We are hardly better than those who with a short-sighted and egoistic zeal piled up volumes in German cities and ignited them because they thought they had found some superior knowledge that had rendered Learning obsolete.


And I nominate this one too. I know C. S. Lewis is dead, but given the nature of this thread, I think it is entirely appropriate to nominate him:

"Most of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past.  Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion.  A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age."

 

 

Mr. Wonderful, I nominate the following

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Originally posted by: foot soldier
" And I nominate this one too!"

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Duly noted & duly noted.