A New Digital Divide

A New Digital Divide?


We the undersigned protest in the strongest possible terms the elimination of the on-campus paging and delivery of materials service on campus. This constitutes a major degradation in services offered by the library, which prides itself on providing "the foundation of knowledge needed to advance cutting-edge discoveries in a wide range of disciplines, from healthcare and science to public policy and the arts (http://libraries.ucsd.edu/about/index.htlm).
At a time when every effort is being made to extend access to online databases and digital resources, it is startling that the core collection of materials in the librarybooks, or what we might call the original databasebe relegated to a less important status by making them far more difficult to gain access to and use.

Cessation of services contributes to the trend of privileging digital materials to the detriment of the printed resources in the collection. The monetary investment the library makes to the printed collection has dropped considerably in recent years. Finding books in the stacksif and when they have been shelvedis enormously time-consuming, substantially detracting from productive work. Making it more difficult to rely on books in the collection will reduce usage and so become additional evidence for reducing resources devoted to the printed collection. The measure also disproportionately disadvantages faculty in the humanities and social sciences whose workteaching as well as researchrelies far more heavily on printed materials than those whose resources are available on-line. It should go without saying that this measure also discriminates against those of limited mobility.

We are fully aware of the difficulties all of us face in the current fiscal crisis. Limiting access to library materials, however, is unworthy of a research institution. We are open to alternative proposals to find a compromise, but the unilateral cancellation of paging services must be rescinded for the health and integrity of UCSD as an educational leader.