Library to cut budget, services

The University’s libraries will offer a diminished level of service next year as a result of budget cuts, officials said.

To cope with state budget cuts that will range from 5 to 15 percent, UNC Libraries will reduce hours open, computer maintenance and librarian availability and leave vacant positions empty instead of laying off employees, said Sarah Michalak, University librarian and associate provost for University libraries.

UNC Libraries faced a 4.4 percent budget cut for the current academic year and is preparing for a 6 percent budget cut starting July 1 this year, Michalak said.

This will cost the department 11 vacant positions and $1.7 million.

Combined with a one-time cut of $1.2 million from this year, UNC Libraries could feel the effect of losing nearly $3 million.

The cuts will only affect the facilities classified as UNC Libraries, which include Davis Library, Wilson Library, the Undergraduate Library and the law library, but excludes certain departmental libraries such as the Park Library at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Michalak said the cuts will affect several levels of services like computer maintenance, adding that the department might reduce the number of computers available to students and not replace them for four to five years.

“For students, the computers will be getting older and might not work as well,” she said.

The budget cuts will also likely stop the newly extended hours of Davis Library, Michalak said. The library will be forced to close earlier than 2 a.m. Sunday through Thursday, changing students’ study routines.

“The good thing is you can move to the Undergraduate Library,” she said.

Junior Nina Brashears said she would be one of those students.

“If the hours the libraries were open changed, it could potentially affect me because I would have to rearrange my routine of my study,” she said.

But the Undergraduate Library hours will not be affected because they are funded by the Student Library Advisory Board, said Pam Sessoms, undergraduate librarian.

And while the libraries will be losing 11 vacant positions, departments will rework their internal operations to make sure the duties are equally distributed, Sessoms said.

“All of those vacancies are a lot of work here, so the library is just trying to reassign work so that no one area is hit especially hard,” she said.

Sessoms said management is working to minimize the impact of the cuts by moving more content online and providing smaller computer monitors that can connect to laptops.

Michalak said she regretted the inevitable decrease in services.

“We want to give students and faculty members the best library assistance that we can, and when budget cuts are made, we can’t take as many staff and we can’t be as fast and so on,” she said.

“To us, that feels very bad.”

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