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Another Library Bites the Dust

Jul 05 2006 22:41

William the Conquerer

The Department of Computing technical library has become the latest in the series of departmental library closures.

No lights in the technical library

The gradual removal of departmental libraries continued at the end of last week, with a shake-up of the Department of Computing's Computer Support Group (CSG).

The DoC technical library, run by CSG, is home to past project reports, user manuals, magazines and technical books but has remained closed since 30th June. The department has been unable to justify retaining it with such a high demand for space in Huxley.

The closure has already attracted complaints from MSc students who are still in College working on their dissertations, as the library provided a convenient source of information next to the main teaching labs.

While the loans system allowing books to be borrowed has been discontinued, it is still theoretically possible, if inconvenient, to browse while standing in the library. However, the Technical Librarian and three other staff members leaving in the re-organisation last week has led to staff shortages, meaning the room is currently locked; this effectively isolates the resources from any students.

Some of the existing stock will make its way to the central library; however, this is also short of space. A proportion of the remaining books will transfer to the new DoC common room, for reference only, with the rest likely to be disposed of. There is concern that those books left in the common room will gradually disappear, with no librarian to watch over them. The technical library room itself is likely to be turned into a meeting room.

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Discussion about “Another Library Bites the Dust”

The comments below are unmoderated submissions by Live! readers. The Editor accepts no liability for their content, nor for any offence caused by them. Any complaints should be directed to the Editor.

1. simon pascoe

Jul 06 2006 11:14

And obviously a meeting room empty 2/3rds of the day is also a good use of space for the benefit of students.

2. Baffled

Jul 06 2006 12:08

How do they (whoever's responsible) justify laying off 4 members of CSG when the group always appeared to be fighting the tide? Support for research groups was always desperately patchy - at times excellent, but often hopeless. I always thought it was poor management but then the management seems to have stayed largely intact while the minions (all of whom were long standing members of staff) have been axed.

3. Steve

Jul 07 2006 09:17

"I always thought it was poor management but then the management seems to have stayed largely intact while the minions .....have been axed"

That's standard business practice isn't it? It happens everywhere

4. psi

Jul 13 2006 22:03

yeah since when have you heard of those making the decisions thinking, "oh we need to lay off some staff, how about me!"

5. Unbaffled

Jul 13 2006 23:51

There are more members in the DoC CSG group per staff member than there are in any other department - yet most departments can get a reply from the ICT service desk in less than 24 horus where as getting a visit from CSG might take weeks.

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