UW Colleges Cut Library Budget
By Garrett DeCleene
photo by Garrett DeCleene
Library worker, sophomore Thai Vue returns materials to the shelves during his
shift Oct. 29 in UW-Fox Valley's library.
In just a few days, the chancellor of the UW Colleges and University of Wisconsin-Extension David Wilson will decide how $500,000 will be cut from the UW Colleges’ library system.
However, virtually no student seems aware of the situation.
“I had no idea there was a
possibility of cuts to the library’s
budget,” UW-Fox Valley (UW-Fox)
sophomore Alex Bricker said.
“That’s really unfortunate.”
The $500,000 budget cut is the result of a $1.6 million deficit in the UW Colleges.
Wilson is in charge
of deciding how the budget will be
balanced. “The UW Colleges is a very
efficient institution, and we don’t
have an excess number of faculty
or staff.
So when you have to cut $1,600,000 out of your operation’s budget and you don’t have any place you can go to get that money, it means, unfortunately, that you will have to cut programs that are already lean and many of them already understaffed,” Wilson said. Assistant professor of English Bill Gillard agreed.
“The colleges have been running a structural deficit for many years, year to year budget shortfalls, and the chancellor, to his credit, is taking these very seriously.
"He’s attempting not only to balance our budget but to build a reserve,” Gillard said. UW-Fox’s library director April Kain-Breese believes that the budget cuts will heavily affect the services the library offers.
“We teach a tremendous number of classes. We purchase materials for the book collection. We answer all kinds of reference questions all day long. We offer a lot of assistance with online searching,” Kain-Breese said.
“The biggest consideration is having librarians available when students need us. So to the extent that you reduce the presence of librarians, you reduce student access.”
UW-Fox students and faculty members both believe that the cuts will impact the quality of education for UW Colleges’ students. “This is going to have a real impact on real people,” campus dean and CEO Jim Perry said.
Some students seemed particularly worried about the situation.
“I use the library’s resources for my school projects, and with these possible cuts, the library would probably not be able to be updated like it is now, and that would really affect my learning experience,” UWFox sophomore Jessica Steinback said. “I am in the library about two to three times a week, and some programs I use could be affected or eliminated,” UW-Fox freshman Kayla Sterken said.
“I rely on our librarians and our library to do all kinds of instruction for literature classes and composition classes and writing classes.
"It is a vital part of the process here at Fox. In general it is a vital part of any university.
I can’t imagine a university without a library; it’s where knowledge lives,” Gillard said. “You can have all sorts of flashy holdings, databases and print materials, but if there aren’t people there to help you make sense of them, we all suffer.”
Gillard was one of several people involved in a group called the library task force (LTF).
The LTF released a report that laid out various options for the chancellor to decide how the budget cuts will be made. There were four options in the original report.
Now options one, three and four remain. Wilson will use his best judgment to determine the fate of the UW Colleges’ library system.
“I want to make a decision that will have the minimal effect on the quality of services that students, faculty and the community get from the libraries, and will have the minimal effect on the people delivering those services,” Wilson said. The first option in the LTF report will reduce hours and salary of library staff.
Options three and four will cut virtually all of the professional library staff positions.
“There is hidden stuff in there that you don’t see at first glance, but option three and four’s figures are based on assuming that every professional librarian is gone.
So, they’re starting over with lower salaries,” Kain-Breese said. “Options three and four would transfer control of campus libraries from the campus dean to a central library director.
That would be at odds with how everything else is done. We report to the campus deans, and we feel we need to continue to do that.” Given the three options, an overwhelming amount of people have felt that there is one particular option they would like the chancellor to choose.
“Option one preserves professionals on the campuses. It makes the cuts at the times when libraries are the least busy so that the cuts would have the least amount of impact on the people,” Kain-Breese said.
“I would agree with both of our collegium and with my colleagues, and we rather informally indicated to the chancellor that option number one would be our choice,” Perry said “As a senator, I need to remain open to my constituency and I don’t want to appear that I have closed off all other options, but when you have one option that is supported so broadly, it’s impossible to ignore that,” Gillard said.
Wilson is carefully looking at all options, and he is not leaning toward any particular option yet.
“I’m still considering all of the options, as I think I would be disingenuous if I were looking at one option closer than another,” Wilson said.
“We will look at when the students at UW-Fox and other campuses use the library services the most and try to retain staffing at the libraries during those periods.
But when there are periods where you’re not using those facilities, then we will have to look at perhaps down-staffing the library somewhat.”
Kain-Breese and other library staff have been dealing with this issue now for a while, and it has not been easy. “It’s been stressful for the librarians.
The last six months have been challenging. People have been on pins and needles to find out what’s going to happen. "We have lost several librarians in the system already,” Kain-Breese said.
“This is going to be a huge whack at library services no matter which option they take.”
Wilson believes he will have a decision made by Nov. 15, but it could come earlier.
For more information on the library or its hours of operation, visit www.uwfox.uwc.edu/library.