University of Virginia Library

Letters To The Editor

Christianity 'Repressive And Degrading'

In an all-too-serious
attempt not to sound cute or
self-righteous to those whom
this may offend:

Regarding your recent
feature articles on the "Jesus
Movement," let it at least be
noted for the record that there
do remain members of this
community who consider
Christianity, and especially its
present trends, as socially
repressive, humanly degrading,
and theologically as well as
intellectually unacceptable.

Liberals?

I recently wrote you all a
letter expressing my
disapproval of the
single-sanction of the Honor
System, but The Cavalier Daily
did not chose to print it.

Instead, the editorial space
has been taken with such
earth-shattering things as
basketball. Perhaps I should
have entitled the letter. "Barry
Parkhill could get Screwed by
the Honor System": it might
have gotten into print.

I am now sorry that I
opposed the Young Americans
for Freedom in their effort to
remove The Cavalier Daily
from the Student Activities
fund, since The Cavalier Daily
refuses to print anything other
than the view of establishment
Liberals

All Night

Some remarks about your
editorial on Alderman Library
(3/6/73). A few years ago a
number of students petitioned
successfully to have the library
open at 12 noon instead of 2
pm on Sundays.

In stark contrast to this was
the decision to close the library
at 6 instead of 10 on Saturday
evenings. This decision was
made after a brief, though not
complete, survey of the various
public service divisions
involved. Those divisions
include circulation, documents,
reserve, periodicals, and
reference. The decision was, for
all intents and purposes, made
prior to consulting all these
sections, though eventually all
were polled, and the majority
apparently prevailed.

Granted that most
employees of the library are
not directly involved with the
public; still the decision was
made prior to a complete
survey and without regard to
those employees in such
divisions who do feel that the
library is here to serve first
those who use it. It would not
be difficult to reach some
kind of a balance between
employees and users of the
library, for neither has
anything to lose nor anything
to hold against the other.

The point, though, is that
the second decision indicates
what some of us have known
or suspected for a while–that
there is an undercurrent of
either disrespect or just plain
dislike for the users of the
library, an undercurrent in the
administrative activities that
surfaces irregularly and
inconveniently.

Perhaps this is becoming
evident again in a recent
desire to conduct a survey of
users to determine whether or
not periodicals should
circulate. This very limited
survey seems to have been
organized with the hope that
eventually no periodicals will
circulate. Again, a decision is
implicit before the opinions are
collected.

There is at least one other
side to the matter, however.
Students, generally, have not
been very considerate about
keeping the places where they
study clean. Though food and
drinks are not allowed in the
library now, there is a
ridiculous amount of food
wrappers and containers left
scattered everywhere at closing
time.

I would think that keeping
the library open all night
would necessitate some kind of
lounge where users could at
least obtain coffee, but the
demands on students to keep
the place clean would have to
be met. What Mr. Frantz plans
to do about the report on a
lounge is still uncertain, I
believe. Some kind of
cooperation from students
would be necessary, however,
and such is not yet apparent

The lack of foresight on
students' part is evident in the
desire to have Food Services in
charge of the robots in the
proposed lounge, when
students have continuously
complained of Food Services'
rip-off tactics. Problems in
obtaining machines in some
other way would not be
insurmountable.

Finally, the library staff
after 11:30 p.m. could be cut
by one easily and probably two
without much difficulty.
Perhaps no books or
periodicals could be checked
out after 11:30, but the library
could still be open all
night for those who wish
to use it. Why not?