Page 2/The Battalion/Tuesday, July 19, 1988
Opinion
The Evans Library — a sorority house in disguise?
A impotent behe
moth
shoddy and scary
what can it be
but our own li-
berry?
Me, circa 1988
OK, kids, now
time for a few
words about the
state of higher ed-
ucation in our
Rah, rah.” That shut them up. It always
does.
Mark
Nair
I admit, 1 went to the library the
other day for a little bit of research, a
little bit of journal reading and a lot a bit
of exercise looking for my little bit of re
search and little bit of journal reading.
On my way to our sprawling Sterling C.
Evans metropolis, I was accosted by a
strange little fellow wearing a strange
little red and orange raincoat.
“Psssst, steel umbrellas, 35 bucks.” He
talked out of the side of his mouth.
very own beloved country of Texas
A&M. Today, we tackle that promising
and vulnerable issue: libraries. Now, all
of my friends (one) at other universities
(one) usually often always sometimes
more than others scoff at my attempts
(once) to describe my research attempts
(many) at our very own, famous for
nothing, Sterling C. Evans library.
“Whaddia mean, library,” my buds
would all say simultaneously, careful to
annunciate the word “library” and not
“libraries.”
“Yeah,” I would respond with my
usual witty retort.
“Arf, arf, arf,” they would laugh,
thinking themselves quite funny.
“But we’ve got a swell football team.
“Steel umbrellas?” I asked, bemused.
I struck an imposing, quizzical pose.
“Steel, that’s right.” The strange fel
low looked around nervously. “They’ll
protect you against any size library
bricks that might happen to fall on your
head, if you catch my drift.”
I looked up. The library loomed
above me. Pink insulation stuck out be
tween cracks in the bricks. There were
gaps in the walls and ceiling but some
smart someone covered up most of
them with cardboard.
“Thirty bucks,” he announced. “Stay
alive and support the football team.”
But then a chunk of the sixth floor the
size of Albuquerque fell on his head and
sent him straight to China.
With a gentle yet concerned shrug of
my shoulders, I continued on my way.
The automatic library doors (stunning
reminders of supermarket doors) were
stuck in the “open” as opposed to “clo
sed” position. But library users usually
prefer a convenient entry to an entry
where one must wait (those few precious
nano-seconds) for it to open.
Now, for those of you new to town, a
few words about THE library:
Our library, dedicated to something
— I’m not quite sure what, has a few im
portant goals that I should note here
(just for clarification, of course). The
following compose The Big Six Library
Principles with which we should all be
very familiar —
Principle 1: To be considered socially
active, trips to the library are a must. In
deed, research and studying are out of
the question.
Q: Where are you going?
A: To the library.
Q: Oh, going to pick up some babes,
eh?
Principle 3\ ALIS is always down.
Principle 4\ I’m sorry, we have only 1
copy of that book.
Supplement to Principle 4: A book of
which there is only 1 copy is usually
checked out until the year 2120.
Principle 5: Journals? What are jour
nals?
A: You betcha.
Q and A: Ah, ha ha ha ha.
Principle 2\ Card catalog? That’s an
tique. Try the ALIS computer system.
Principle 6 — in case of emergency:
The shuttle bus to U.T. isn’t really that
expensive.
Principle 7: Never kill a human be
ing. (Oh, Tm sorry. That’s an Asimov
robotic rule. Doesn’t apply to the li
brary.)
Last semester, when 1 was on one of
my romps through the library in search
of some important political science doc
ument or something like that, I hap
pened upon an interesting piece of pa
per floating listlessly around the fourth
floor. I grabbed it and examined it (as I
have the habit of doing with all listless
pieces of paper) and noticed that it con
tained a list of strange and bizarre
sounding names, i.e. Buffy, Zowie, Meg,
Trish, Brutus. Ah, ha, I exclaimed si
lently, a SORORITY. And in the LI
BRARY at that! Will wonders never
cease?
I then noticed that it was study time
for the sorority sisters. 1 noticed tlie»ecfi giV<
that said sisters must sign in in order Mobley,
prove that they have actually studied.MChairma
then noticed that said sisters, afterkf° 11 ( * °.* ^
ing signed said list, sit down to uwacMV u Is v
table and commence discussing sucRgp'j^|
items that, after Principle 1 is mer-pth p re si<
orized by you, the reader, I do notfo : |»rsity. Sir
to illuminate. Thus we have the tvavit«Ms great
the way is was, and unfortunate!), [■.(blessed wit
way it may continue to be for our;®°. n S ' t:
, wsidents,
•' , Bns, de
So, 1 call for cops to patrol ourkMy o V er
lowed halls. You know the kind f rti&jjpnk £. \
Big, lunky guys with names like Miffilished 1
Zowie, Meg, ,Tnsh and lirutus. T{|l ein P* ar ’'
kind of guys who shoot first and neij® an( * 0 U
would even think of asking questions. ®
And then, after that, maybe tve forward t
get more books. Bds that
And then, after that, /jj.nbe ueijpk 11 ""^
get more journals. thai h' h
And then, after that, maybe tve Vandiver
turn the whole thing into one bt^paBir succe:
ing garage complete with its veryorHAs Tex;
computer controlled phallic-like P aies for t
tower that rings cheery little tunesei:w ltl ^ s ***
time the football teams scores a toiiiim^i^
down or Jackie Sherrill get a raised enlironme
rah. Bented fa
Mark Nair is a graduate student 'J le ^
opinion page editor /or The Battalion L m folstra
She develo
Is that the best you could do with the library, Dr. Hoadley?
■trees ne
Breasingl
■need ext
■ if we ar
the intellet
The following is
an open letter to
Dr. Irene Hoad
ley), Director of the
Sterling C. Evans
Library.
Dr. Larry
Hickman
Guest Columnist
Dear Dr. Hoad
ley:
As part of the ongoing discussion be
tween members of the faculty and your
office, you have told us that the library’s
holdings in Liberal Arts will never be
first rate. You have tSld us that you do
not have, nor cain you obtain, the re
sources to enable the proper cataloging
and storage of those books in the Evans
Library that members of the faculty
deem of special value, and therefore
worthy of special protection. You have
told us that it is only a matter of some
unspecified amount of time until we will
have an adequate catalogue of our hold
ings (which, I must add, we have not
had during the fifteen years I have been
a faculty member at Texas A&M). Per
haps these matters are not within your
power to control. At least that is what
you have told us.
say, we should never expect to have in
our own collection? Why do you expect
the faculty to do the job done by profes
sional bibliographers at every other ma
jor library? Why is the University of
Texas spending almost two dollars on
their library for every one dollar we
spend on ours? Why did the University
of Texas buy three times as many books
in 1986-87 as did our library? Why do
we have only 311 staff members for our
library whereas they have 577 for
theirs?
capital
studeni
Pnlv w
OpilU‘11
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fuse tl
Since you are the director of the
Evans Library, however, I must assume
that there are at least some matters
which you control. I therefore pose the
following questions. Why, when our uni
versity is seventh in terms of size, and
eighth in terms of its endowments, is
our library ranked the 48th in the na
tion? Why have you cancelled interlib
rary loan services which allow free ac
cess by faculty to materials which, as you
But I must ask even a more basic
question, the answer to which can surely
not be that you lack funding. Why is our
library the noisiest of any in which I
have worked during the last 25 years?
My work has taken me to libraries in
third world countries where readers
move their lips: those libraries were in
variably quieter than the Evans Library.
Why do your card-catalogers form
groups of three and four to discuss their
social affairs at voice levels that make
concentrated use of the catalogue im
possible? Why do their supervisors allow
them to do so, instead of maintaining
our sadly neglected catalogue? Why do
members of your cleaning and mainte
nance staff feel free to converse with
one another at distances of fifty feet and
more on all six floors? Why cannot
cleaning and maintenance be done dur
ing times that library usage is minimal?
Why are not group study prohibitions
enforced in areas designated for indi
vidual study? Why does the Learning
Resources Division not have better
sound insulation? Why are the staff of
the Development Foundation not re
quested to restrict their conversations as
they move from their sixth floor offices
through the study tables to the eleva
tors? It is a disgrace that a student can
graduate after four years at Texas A&M
Unversity and never have experienced
what is regarded as a normal study envi
ronment by the administrators of most
major university libraries.
Texas A&M University has many
honors to bestow on its faculty and staff.
You have received one of the highest:
you are the holder of an endowed chair.
But with major honors also come major
responsibilities. I call upon you to exer
cise the leadership which will make the
Evans Library a place where our faculty
will not be ashamed to bring their col
leagues from other universities. I call
upon you to administer a library that is
more than a warehouse for books and a
place for conversation. Can you not take
steps to ensure that we have a library
that is a fit place to browse, to think, to
do scholarly work?
group meetings for some years iw
But since I hear them voiced morel
more frequently, and since man;
these matters have assumed crisis
1 I v_. V-. All CX 1. t v.' I O 1 1 CX V V-. CXO O d 111 V- VI VI liliv
mansions, I thought that you mighti
a chance to respond to them in at
public way: to inform the readersi
The Battalion — the students, thes
the faculty, the administrators,!
members of the Board of Regents 2
the former students of Texas ABHl
versity — of your plans to solve!
difficulties.
These questions will come as no sur
prise to you, for I and others have been
putting them to you personally and in
Dr. Larry Hickman
associate professor of Philosophy
Humanities
TEXAS
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