Reserve Books

To the Editors of The Crimson:

There is much that disappoints in both the style and the substance of your recently published editorial remarks about reserves in Lamont and Hilles, but there are only two aspects of your report that must be dealt with here.

Your essay constitutes a veiled and unjustified attack on library staff and is likely to do so much damage to their effectiveness in dealing with library users that it cannot be ignored. "Libraries" don't drag their feet and "libraries" don't shuffle papers; only sentient beings can be described that way, and your form of innuendo effectively suggests that once again it's those dullards behind the desk who are standing between the students and the books. I solemnly reject that implication, because I can testify to the intelligence and integrity of the people who make the best they can of a large and complex system.

Lest any credit whatsoever attach to your power to influence events related to reserves, I want Crimson readers to know that the reserve system has received serious scrutiny from staff work groups in the last year and will continue to do so, that some preliminary steps have been taken to control input into an automated reserves file, and that the administration of the Harvard College Library and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences are aware of the pressing need to rationalize and rehabilitate the reserves system. Heather E. Cole   Librarian of Lamont and Hilles Libraries