Decision to cut academic library journals is foolish

TO THE EDITOR:

Thursday’s editorial (“Small cuts, big difference,” Sept. 3)about serials cancellations was foolish, anti-intellectual and just plain wrong.

I speak in particular defense of the “Journal of Metamorphic Geology.” As one who teaches and does research in this area, I can assure you that many students and faculty rely on that journal. You don’t “flip through it.” It’s not “People.”

Nearly all of Earth’s carbon dioxide is tied up in rocks, and metamorphic geology deals in large part with how rocks take up and give off carbon dioxide, water, and other vital components of the geochemical cycle. We continue to receive the journal online, as we should.

Let’s hope that the attitude displayed in the editorial does not win out, or soon the only serials the library gets will be “People,” “Glamour” and “Self.”


Allen Glazner
Chairman
Geological Sciences