“Many creative writers keep journals; the sociologist’s need for systematic reflection demands it.” -C. Wright Mills

I am impressed by the demand about the library.

The lack of any apparent concern about the library among Columbia’s protesters was incredibly disappointing, compounded only by the administration’s lack of interest in doing anything to modernize the dysfunctional Columbia library system as part of their monumental campus expansion.

When I tried to raise the issue at Columbia in discussions about the expansion, the library bureaucrats felt the need to defend their management instead of seizing an opportunity to get much needed resources. Apparently they don’t see any efficiencies in reducing any of the 22 redundant control points and circulation desks. Perhaps they don’t mind the lack of coherent book stacks and derth of study space.

Come to think of it, a lot of the long-overdue improvements might result in lower staffing. What was I thinking? What bureaucrat is going to volunteer to lose staff positions?

There is certainly not an overabundance of library resources at Columbia. The resources themselves (in terms of books nominally in the collection and budgeted amounts) are probably sufficient, but unfortunately the misallocation makes them very ineffective.

As you note, the multiple campuses would preclude a single consolidated library. Nevertheless, a large amount of rationalization is far overdue. The Columbia library system is really a testament to political rivalries within the institution, and it is a barrier to real interdisciplinary scholarship.

Take Lehman as an easy example; it maintains two closely related collections in entirely separate fashion, making it confusing and unnecessarily time consuming for everyone involved. Simply consolidating the two collections of overlapping subject matter that are already housed in the same building would help!

[I'm not so much a fan of Mom and Pop stores anyway. They are generally cramped, have a poor selection at relatively high prices, and granpa who has been sitting there bored all day gives you the creeps while you're comparing the two different brands of cat food in stock.]

What I would like is a slight improvement over the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library (architecture would be a different discussion).

I accept the Lehman example, but I’d suggest that most other separations are physically delineated or are a product of financial gifts that would militate distinction anyway.
Also, I don’t see it as a barrier to interdisciplinary scholarship. That’s more a psychological obstacle on the part of students and teachers than spatial organization. One could easily argue it the other way: forcing students to enter unfamiliar environments oriented around unfamiliar specializations could enhance interdisciplinarity by clearly identifying other worlds of possibility. This is certainly the way the library system has worked for me. That said, I’m willing to allow that the physical separation may reinforce barriers for those inclined to create them.
I have no knowledge of UofC’s library, so I’m afraid that reference doesn’t get me anywhere.

The separateness of the libraries is a physical expression of the divisions within the university. My understanding is that the separate libraries continue to exist in large part because the faculties of the different schools are unwilling to loosen any of their petty influence within the institution. They would rather have control over their own library than compromise with others in a broader, more effective global system.

I also think that the loss of shared spaces reduces the opportunity for chance encounters. Bumping into a friend in another discipline at the circulation desk while you are working on something quite specific to your own discipline could still present an opportunity for a significant interaction. Segregating the disciplines into separate spaces helps to eliminate these possibilities.

I doubt the gifts should create an enduring legacy of separation. Many of them were made long, long ago, when any such obligation would have expired. There should be ways to modernize (book plates and named reading rooms) that would still allow the actual collections to be integrated into an overarching academic system.

I am dubious about the idea that the libraries are oriented around other specializations. For the most part, they are all organized around cataloging and shelving systems driven by library science, rather than anything that is core to any of the disciplines. Those systems would still provide areas of knowledge their own orbits of interest (through sections of book stacks) without requiring students to navigate arbitrary differences in hours, circulation policies, and reshelving areas.

Use Avery, my least favorite library, as another example. It is barely usable for experienced researchers, given its shelving problems: first, check the shelf; then check the reshelving area on that floor; then check the reshelving area on the other floor; then see if it was incorrectly shelved for the space in the call number. (Then talk to the reference librarian for 45 minutes and ultimately order it through ILL or take a trip to NYPL because Avery can’t find its copy…) Faculty and students from other disciplines entering this mess wouldn’t even know where to start, and the effort yields only familiarity with the idiosyncracies of a broken system, no deeper knowledge or insights. Avery is an extreme, but the lost productivity is repeated across the Columbia library system.

Overall, given the desire to spend so much money and undertake a large scale physical reorganization of the university, it seems unfathomable that anyone would tolerate a continuation of the cramped, divisive, labor-intensive, and error prone system. There is just too much opportunity to bring the university together into a more efficient, collective, and symbolically rich set of libraries.

And Wallerstein, who thinks we should reorganize education into six or so broad fields, would certainly agree.