UCLA has arts library on chopping block

Facing drastic budget reductions this year, UCLA has begun implementing cuts across its departments to make up for an estimated $131-million shortfall. Among the proposed victims is one of Los Angeles' largest cultural resources -- the arts library on the Westwood campus.

The university has confirmed that it is looking at eliminating the library, which contains more than 270,000 volumes in the fields of art, architecture, design, film, television, theater and more. If the plan is approved, UCLA will shut down the arts library in the Public Policy Building and move some of the collection to a facility shared with another library.

"This doesn't mean we would stop serving the arts community," said Gary Strong, the university's head librarian. "We would do this from a different location. The fact is that we cannot support all of the separate libraries that we currently have."

Strong added that UCLA's chemistry library is also under consideration for elimination. No layoffs from the library staff are currently planned, he said, declining to elaborate on any other plans. "I don't know what's next in terms of the budget."

The UCLA library system supports 12 facilities on an annual operating budget of about $40 million, according to the university. A spokeswoman at UCLA said study teams are being organized to examine the operational effect of closing the arts and chemistry branches. "What will not change, however, is the Library’s steadfast focus on offering collections and services," she said in a statement.

The entire UC system is experiencing budget cuts of more than $800 million across its 10 campuses. A final decision about the fate of the arts and chemistry libraries is expected this fall or winter. The last branch to close was the physics library in 2003.

-- David Ng

Photo: One of the libraries at UCLA. Credit: Stephanie Diani

Comments

[Phenomenal Smith]

"One of the libraries" is the best you can do for a photo caption? That's the Reading Room of College Library, part of the Powell Library building.

[TheBigTransition]

Ray Bradbury didn't have it that wrong. Instead of burning books - with fire - books are being "burned" like CDs into digital form, to the point where physical books will cease to matter in a few short years. Smart schools and museums are realizing that inevitability now and are starting the transition, selling assets while they still can, before they become as worthless as VHS and cassette tapes.

[Wes]

This is really crummy news. The UCLA Arts Library is an underutilized treasure on campus. With 3 or 4 stories of great literature on every movement, style and theory on the arts, it is a treasure trove of relevant information and probably the best collection of arts-based literature in Los Angeles. While I agree that there is a benefit to selling off before it's "too late" for some types of lit, much of the arts collection (particularly oversized stacks) are irreplaceable through digital means. There are issues of scanning the large books when it comes to having a bed large enough to scan them. There are also issues of digitizing these kinds of books in the high resolution that they deserve and then making them available to students in an accessible and copyright-OK environment. After all, we aren't talking about scanning books in a Google Books style, with OCR-readable text.

It seems that UCLA has cut arts funding in some very unfortunate ways through the years. ArtsBridge has been cut at, the Arts Nonprofit MBA is no more and I know many departments are on hiring freezes. It seems that UCLA, like so many other institutions, is depending on Eli Broad to single handedly support its arts. After so much money has been donated to UCLA for expansion of its arts in the past 5-10 years (Kaufman's $18M to the WAC department, Broad's new art building...), UCLA is NOT HOLDING UP ITS END OF THE BARGAIN. And for that, I say shame on the administration.

Wes Pinkham, UCLA '10
World Arts and Cultures

[TheBigTransition]

Wes, I feel for you. But the current economic recession is giving many organizations the excuse to cut costly programs, knowing full well that people are too distracted to really cause an uprising. Also, technology will continue to progress so rapidly that these oversized arts books CAN be digitized. Every book in the library will eventually be able to be viewed on huge LCD screen monitors. and ebook readers like the Kindle will also get to the color and clarity of the best 1080p bluray TV set quality...and better. The cost and space of maintaining books, with all their inherent temperature and lighting requirements, makes digital a much better option. This one isn't worth a fight. You should get involved in helping the transition to digital.

[Lindsey Alexis]

As a former student of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, I can say that the Arts Library in the Public Policy was a secondary home to us. The volumes of journals, periodicals, archives, etc, were so dearly essential to our education, and we students took great pride in our resources. Of course, the transfer to digital would preserve the hard data, but it won't allow future generations of artists to walk into their own library, and spend hours upon hours looking up Dadaist theory or Czechoslovakian surrealist films (I remember those papers well.) It would truly be a great loss to our program and our university.

[DigiCat]

Wes is right to note that digitization is problematic for Arts books, and the problems are not ones that technology is close to solving (at least not in a way that would save the Library money). Libraries, archives, etc. have a good handle on how to preserve print resources affordably and well enough that we can be confident that users 100 years from now will be able to access them. We do not have anything like that handle on digital resources. We should solve those access/use problems before we lose, reduce or restrict access to tangible resources.

[Bruce Emerton]

I think what most techies don't understand or don't want to understand is: a digital version is a format change and when you change the format you change the content and indeed you change the message.

Ask yourself this: is it the same to read farhenheit 451 in print as on a kindel.

Format discriminanation is a form of censorship.

[Jeff]

As an art grad from UCLA (MFA, Graphic Design '75) I am saddened at the thought of eliminating the art library. I, too, spent many hours in the library looking for inspiration and information about the world I was about to enter. This will be a big loss to the art programs.

[Judith van Praag]

What Lindsey Alexis writes rings true for me as well, I second every word. As a foreign student at UCLA in the mid 70's I marveled over the collection. It's not an exaggeration to state that pouring over the books at the library of the Arts department determined a career in Theater Arts. The library seemed to reflect the notion that studying Art was as important as, say, Law.

[Wes]

I e-mailed the editor of arts & entertainment at the daily bruin. Shocking, but he hasn't gotten back to me about whether they'll even cover the story.

I'm currently working on digitizing records at the Music Center and through it all, we're still holding onto the hard copies. No one is quite sure of the expectancy of digital formats. There are methods, maybe even gimmicks, to extend the life of data, but it's not foolproof. Gold-plated DVDs, multiple hosting sites, whosits and whatsits galore... When the experts really can't agree on something, there should be red flags going up. UCLA's own Library Sciences students will tell you that digitization is a supplement, not a replacement for long-term, sustainable libraries.

Physical space is of course much more expensive than digital space these days. It didn't used to be that way, back when hard drives were the size of cars. The digitization of the library is not what is on the mind of the administration, let's be honest here. Who knows what they want at this point? I imagine that they envision tossing the material still in print and accessible on Amazon and moving everything worth any money to the Southern Reference Library Facility, where they already keep 1/3 of the collection.

UCLA... What's next? Selling the Fowler collection? Giving Pauley's naming rights to Rupert Murdoch? Turning Royce into a monkey lab?

[Andrew]

This news makes me terribly sad.

I graduated from UCLA in 2006 and I loved visiting the Arts Library! It was so confusing and awesome at the same time.

I'm currently in Library Science School and I based one of my projects on the concept of an arts library, with the UCLA Arts library in mind.

I hope they find some other to keep it open. its such a great research for any student at the school.

[Digitizingrightnow]

This is very sad news which will become catastophic if this becomes a trend. As someone who works in an art library and whose job it is to digitize a collection, I can tell you that yes digital files are cheaper to store and all libraries should be expanding their digital resources. However, a large scale digitization projects (like the one the Bigtransition advocates) are extremley expensive and problematic due to copyright issues. Scanning every page in 270,000 volumes, would take years to complete, require a dramatic increase in staffing, and funding. This is money the university does not have. Our digitization project (which is very modest compared to what UCLA would need) requires extra grant funding. I will not go into the copyright concerns, but if you are curious I reccommend you speak to a librarian and ask them to scan an entire book published after 1925. UCLA, and every university, should be purchasing ebooks whenever possible (which I assume they are) but many art book publishers do not publish ebook versions of their texts. All of which makes preservation of this collection even more important.

[Phineas]

And yet with the university facing severe budget cuts and libraries having to close - regardless of what UCLA Library Administrators claim, there will be a serious degradation of service- the University Librarian still plans to ram a temple to his own ego through in the renovations of the ground floor and A-level of the Young Research Library, even borrowing money from the University to do it. But libraries aren't allowed to replace departing librarians, collection budgets are slashed, and morale is rock-bottom.

Now that's "world class" for you.

[Jim]

These comments from the digitization fans are laughable. When was the last time any of you read a WHOLE book in digital form? From start to finish?

I'll tell you when. Never.

It's no alternative. Especially for art books!