Costs May Delay Opening Of New Library Next Fall

The Nathan M. Pusey Library may not open when it is completed next fall because the Faculty cannot afford to pay its operating costs.

Dean Rosovsky said this week that the original estimates on what it would cost to run the library were "much too low" and that "we're looking into not opening it now."

Adjustments

Rosovsky said the Faculty may be able to "make adjustments" in order to open the library on schedule, and that he hopes the Faculty will be able to open it.

"Henry Rosovsky has said, 'Look, is it going to save the Faculty of Arts and Sciences a lot of money if Pusey is not opened when it is completed?'" Louis E. Martin, librarian of Harvard College, said yesterday.

Martin also said the costs of lighting, heating and air-conditioning buildings has risen more in the last two years than Faculty and library officials expected when they made up a preliminary operating budget for the library in 1972.

Rosovsky this week raised the possibility of not opening Pusey when it is completed before the Faculty Council and the Council of Deans.

Rosovsky and Martin said they do not know what the operating costs of the library would be, or how long it would be kept closed after it is built.

"Nobody knows what the outcome of this will be," Rosovsky said. "It is a sensitive problem, and I won't go into details."

Just Begun

Consideration of the possibility of not opening Pusey Library on schedule has apparently just begun.

Several administrators--including President Bok, Robert E. Kaufmann '62, assistant dean of the Faculty for financial affairs, and Robert R. Walsh, assistant University librarian for building planning, said this week they had not heard that Pusey Library might not open when it is completed.

The scheduled completion date for Pusey Library is August 1975. It will house about 2,000,000 books now in Widener, Houghton and Lamont Libraries.

Not Final

John B. Fox Jr. '59, secretary to the Faculty Council, said this week that the council is not close to a final decision on the Pusey delay, and Daniel Steiner '54, general counsel to the University and secretary to the Council of Deans, would not comment on the substance of the deans' discussion of the delay.