Dear Members of the Colby Community
We the undersigned faculty, writing from all academic divisions, vigorously oppose the ongoing Miller library renovations at Colby.
The renovations have been hurried, poorly thought-out, damaging to the mission of the College and conducted with inadequate faculty input. Books have disappeared into storage, administrative offices have appeared or will arise where stacks of books once stood*, the reference area has been purged and the central floor looks like a massive waiting room, designed for students and other patrons to look at each other in between Google searches rather than engage in thoughtful contemplation and scholarship.
As teachers, writers, authors, parents and readers, we see the "phases" of library construction moving ahead like a freight train, leaving the interior of the library – with the exception of the Special Collections department and the offices of our hardworking and much appreciated reference librarians – gutted and spiritless. We write to stop further renovations pending a thoughtful, complete discussion of how best to proceed – and to ensure that Miller becomes what it should be: an adequately staffed, usable library of the 21st century, not a soulless series of offices, empty stacks and "study spaces" that lack the essential tools for deep and reflective study.
We do not understand the Administration's reluctance to discuss with the teaching faculty the truly important issue: what is the place of the library – a repository for the written word and for primary and archival research materials of all sorts – in a liberal arts education at one of the leading colleges in the United States? We have a second question: why repeatedly ignore the input of teaching faculty in the resolution of the question? Symbolic of the entire process Colby's administration has undertaken thus far is the fact that the abrupt gutting of the library began over Spring Break a year ago, seemingly to achieve maximum silence. Upon returning from break, faculty and students reacted with appropriate horror. Students writing senior theses walked around with stunned looks. We frequently overheard students say, "Let's study somewhere else. There are no books here."
What happened to the library? We have learned that, although prepared earlier, an official announcement on moving over 40% of the books and other parts of the collection to storage was sent out to the community by the Dean of Faculty's office late on the Friday afternoon before the start of Spring Break 2013. Already at that time, in March 2013, faculty had submitted a petition to the Dean of Faculty's office indicating the signatories' desire for a halt to any renovations pending careful consideration of faculty input on how best to redesign the library to deal with problems of space while still protecting Colby's teaching and scholarly mission. This petition was ignored. Faculty submitted a second petition to the Dean of Faculty's office in November 2013; this petition, too, received no response. We presented another letter, signed by 76 faculty members, many of them chairs and directors of departments and programs, to President Adams and the Board of Trustees in Feb. 2014, decrying the lack of faculty input into the decision-making process around the renovations.
At their Feb. 1, 2014, meeting, we have learned, some trustees expressed concern about the decision-making process and wondered why the renovations could not be suspended so that faculty input could be taken into account. In the end, however, the trustees chose not "to slow down the process or alter plans for phase two of the library renovation process," although they welcomed healthy discussion about the library's future. This letter is intended in the spirit of promoting further healthy discussion.
Teaching faculty have been overwhelmingly excluded from decisions about how to build and staff a better library, explicitly, by internal memorandum, and implicitly, by front-loading faculty meetings with report upon report so that there is no time for discussion of the library. Faculty members began requesting a special meeting on the library in autumn 2013. Since then, "Library" has appeared on various meeting agendas. Repeatedly, however, that item fell to the bottom of the list, ultimately precluding discussion because of meeting time constraints.**
On March 14, 2014, after months of requests, a meeting finally took place to discuss this crisis. Administration and library personnel listened to our grave concerns about the direction of the library's renovations. Faculty indicated the failure of ongoing renovations to meet the needs of faculty and students by ignoring the importance of the printed word and embracing electronic databases as a sufficient substitute, not understanding how, in fact, teaching faculty use the library in planned and unplanned ways to help our students become critical thinkers, readers and writers. Faculty also expressed distress about the fact that our library staff colleagues, most of whom were also excluded from the planning process for the renovations, now have to contend on a daily basis with faculty frustration.
On March 18, 2014, the Dean of the Faculty, Lori Kletzer, and Doug Terp, Vice President for Administration and Treasurer, responded to the March 14 meeting in a letter to the faculty. This letter largely ignores our concerns. Dean Kletzer and V.P. Terp insist that renovations must go forward because contracts have been signed. They have proposed expanding faculty representation on the college's Library Committee – a committee that has not been deliberative or had any decision-making power in the past – to discuss the future. A year from now in April 2015, Dean Kletzer and VP Terp propose, the Library Committee would be invited to present their "recommendations" to the administration.
By April 2015, however, another year of poorly considered "renovations" will have occurred, and repairing the damage already done to Miller will be even more difficult. Dean Kletzer and VP Terp also claim that there have been "numerous opportunities to exchange views about a storage facility, renovations, space usage, programs and the vision for the libraries." But working group reports and slide shows of other libraries do not constitute faculty involvement, nor does ignoring faculty concerns consistently since we began expressing them clearly in March 2013. As a proposed solution to the very compelling arguments made to stop "Phase II," Dean Kletzer and VP Terp invoke their "continued respect for our existing elected governance structures," but indicate that they have determined to push ahead full speed in spite of strong resistance from the teaching faculty. They acknowledge "that many faculty colleagues feel they did not have a sufficient opportunity to express their strong reservations," but admit only "differences of opinions about whether faculty involvement was adequate." In fact, it continues to be inadequate. We take the March 18th memo, at best, as a polite invitation to accept what has happened and to move on. We also take it as an ominous indicator of what "shared governance" will look like at Colby in the months and years ahead.
The rushed, disruptive and poorly thought out "renovations," and the flawed process that led up to them, have transformed Miller from a place for reflection and deep thought, research and scholarship, into what seems more like a waiting room surrounded by a series of administrative offices. Electronic data are valuable, but they are no alternative to the book. The issue is not a question of electronic resources vs. physical books. Many of the most sophisticated users of electronic resources, in fact, are the same scholars who recognize the irreplaceable role of print and other physical materials. The vast digitization of texts is one of the greatest and most thrilling things that could happen for many scholars, but electronic resources are only valuable and powerful if those using them have ongoing experiences with the physical books and archives they partially represent. The greatest libraries of this new century will maximize immersion experiences with both. Colby's administration would do well to reflect on what can happen in a culture, or a nation, or an organization when the physical evidence of history is obscured or discarded.
We need fundamental changes to the allocation of resources and priorities concerning this project – and others – and a much more inclusive process and culture of decision-making. The process that led to these changes in Miller – a process that the letter from Dean Kletzer and VP Terp affirms – has been rushed and undemocratic and has ignored crucial constituencies: teaching faculty, many librarians, students. A badly damaged library is the result. When faculty have pressed various committee meetings and forums, we have received quick pat answers or been ignored. This decision to move ahead in such a manner has had a negative impact on the entire faculty and all disciplines for it denigrates the meaning of the library, and has hurt morale.
The teaching faculty who oppose the renovations are not a fringe interest group at the College, but are, like our colleagues, central to its mission. We will continue to try to reshape the school's priorities regarding the library, the location of the library collections, the staffing the library requires for Colby to remain a leading liberal arts college and the process whereby decisions affecting the academic program are taken. The library is the center of any campus. It is therefore the center of the student admissions process and a center for fundraising when our graduates look back at their days spent doing research and writing. Books on shelves serve the purpose of enabling browsing and discovery. Those in storage will languish sadly alone. The assumption that students, as "Millennials," appreciate the clearing away of dusty books to emphasize screen-based learning is a mistaken one. Many students – in conversation, in the Echo, on Facebook and elsewhere – have described with deep sadness the ways in which the sudden absence of an inspiring world of books – books that in their very presence shifted students' states of mind and directions of thought – have negatively affected their learning experience here.
Let us keep in mind the need to build a 21st-century library with architecture and design that makes it a contemplative space for the printed word, and abundant research collections close at hand and well in view, and with adequate staffing to support teaching and scholarship. The library has been a beacon of independent thought and a symbol of introspection for centuries. Academic freedom was born in medieval universities and based on contact between professors and students over books. Books are not dinosaurs; they reflect the core values of liberal arts institutions. A fresh "entry sequence" to the library will not be an improvement if the library itself visually and practically undermines the teaching and scholarly endeavors of faculty and students.
We understand the reluctance to lose money. But to throw good money after a bad idea is precisely a loss of money – and in this case with significant danger to Colby's reputation as a leading liberal arts institution. Our library should be an example for "our peers," not a poor attempt to lag behind them.
The Board of Trustees will meet again on April 26, 2014, and we hope they will take the opportunity to rethink the plan for "Phase II" as it currently exists, and fully and immediately involve research and teaching faculty as well as students in the decision regarding how best to proceed in the future.
Sincerely,
Catherine Besteman, Bartlett Professor of Anthropology
Adrian Blevins, Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing
