Library Reform Sees Slow Progress

Progress is slow as the University plans for the largest restructuring of the library system in at least 30 years.

The Library Implementation Group, charged this fall with making concrete changes to the University library system by the winter of 2010, will instead generate another, more specific round of proposals at the end of its one-year tenure.

The Implementation Group—which was charged with reforming Harvard libraries’ sprawling administrative structure, adjusting the collection policy to meet financial constraints, and unifying the disparate information technology systems across the libraries—will now provide “another layer of recommendations,” said Harvard Divinity School Professor David C. Lamberth, who chairs the committee.

The proposals, pending approval from the deans, provost, and president of the University, would then lead to a speedy implementation, Lamberth said.

Last November, University Provost Steven E. Hyman released the findings of the Task Force on University Libraries, which questioned the system’s ambitious collection strategy and disjointed administrative structure. In an e-mail to the community, Hyman wrote that the eight members of the Implementation Group—which includes administrators from across the University—would “carry forward” the Task Force’s recommendations.

Lamberth said that the Implementation Group’s goals changed after the members began work.

“The Task Force report imagined a series of independent improvements among different things,” Lamberth said. “But we have come to see that things are more interdependent than they first seemed.”

If the Task Force report was “diagnostic,” the Implementation Group, which meets at least two times a month, is focusing on the logistics of “com[ing] up with a set of solutions,” Lamberth said.

The group is currently conducting reviews of different aspects of the system and has placed its focus on five key areas—including IT infrastructure, serials purchasing, the financial model of the library system, and increased collaboration, possibly through the consortium BorrowDirect, to which all other Ivy League schools belong.

Chicago-based Huron Consulting Group is in the midst of conducting reviews of the libraries’ organization, governance, and structure, and taking inventory of the libraries’ space across campus.

Meanwhile, the libraries have seen a series of small-scale reforms. A search box will be added to the library website homepage in the coming weeks, Lamberth said, a concern raised by students as part of the Implementation Group’s information-gathering.

In addition, the Harvard College Library—the largest library unit within the University—forged a collaboration with MIT last month to provide undergraduates at the respective institutions access to both libraries.

Since the Implementation Group’s inception, members of the Faculty have expressed concerns that their thoughts would not be incorporated in library reform—a particularly potent concern because their research is so intertwined with the libraries. The Faculty Advisory Group, a channel for concerns from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, began preliminary meetings last month.

“Everything is very much up in the air,” said Harvard Medieval Art History Professor Jeffrey F. Hamburger, who chairs the Faculty Advisory Group.

—Staff writer Noah S. Rayman can be reached at nrayman@fas.harvard.edu. —Staff writer Elyssa A.L. Spitzer can be reached at spitzer@fas.harvard.edu.