University of Virginia Library

Community Spirit

Any university's educational system rests
in part upon the resources it possesses in its
libraries. As we have noted on several occasions
in this column, the Library at this
University is in dire need of much more
financial assistance, not only to furnish the
school with more books, but with the
personnel and facilities necessary for these
books to be continually available. Until the
Library receives significant capital support,
we shall continue to suffer, but during this
hopefully short interval we could make the
best of a poor situation by observing the
rights of all members of this University
community.

By exercising some consideration students
would find that the materials now in the
library system would be more readily available
when they are needed. Graduate students
who have carrels in the stacks of Alderman
Library have long been guilty of removing
many volumes from the shelves into their own
study areas without ever checking them out.
This practice has become so widespread that
some of the most known and needed books
cannot be found in either the stacks or the
reserve book room. This selfish practice
should cease immediately. Members of the
library staff could return a great number of
books to circulation by removing those books
which do not have library cards found in
carrels and placing them back in the stacks.

Members of the faculty and graduate
students have the greater privilege of a longer
time limit per book checked out than the
undergraduate. For that reason there has been
a tendency among many of this group to
check out books for long periods of time even
though they study the book removed only for
a few hours during a period of months. We
urge all students and faculty to return books
to the Library as soon as they have completed
their work with them, even if they have to
check them out again at a later date. This may
cause some inconvenience, but consider the
dilemma of the student who is unable to
locate certain key works all through the
semester.

One professor that used to teach at the
University remarked regularly that the only
good place for a faculty member to get away
from all the students was Alderman Library.
Certainly, this is no longer the case, but it is
understandable why more students do not use
the Library regularly. Undergraduates have
learned to rely on private book collections or
commercial bookstores for sources for term
papers or supplementary course reading rather
than any of the University's libraries. A trip in
search of a book to Alderman Library usually
results in frustration as time is wasted in
learning that the tome is "lost."

All we ask is consideration for each other
to partially rectify the poor situation.