Improving the Research Libraries
Peggy Kamuf, Professor of French and Comparative Literature

Few could argue with the evidence that the quality of a university's libraries is one of the most reliable indicators of the overall quality of the education being offered to its students. All of the top-ranked US universities maintain libraries that are also among the country's most highly ranked. This correlation is so direct and consistent that university administrators would always be well advised to look to the state of their research libraries if they are serious about improving the "quality coefficient" of their institutions. In recent years, USC has shown just how serious it can be about improving this coefficient. And there have been stunning successes as a result of this resolve. So far, however, the university has opted to leave unchanged the policy of status quo-or benign neglect-that it has maintained for so long toward its libraries. 

It is this policy that faculty across the university, but most pressingly in the College of LAS, urge the university administration to abandon. We believe that a new policy to support, protect, and develop the research capacity of our libraries is crucial to the continued enhancement of the quality of our institution. We also believe that this change in policy needs to happen very soon to prevent an irreversible deterioration of that capacity. Given that libraries everywhere are undergoing great upheavals in the rapidly evolving environment of technological innovation, their future, if they are to have any, can no longer be entrusted to benign neglect.

At USC, there has already been significant adaptation to this changing environment. Leavey Library was built to house few books and many computers. Its addition to USC's library system has doubtless improved the quality of undergraduate life in some respects, but it has not strengthened in any significant way that system's capacity for research. Doheny Library's renovation will certainly be an improvement, but the opportunity presented by the retrofitting to implement many desired changes had to be passed up, we understand, for lack of funds. As a result, although we all look forward to the opening of the New Doheny, many who remember exciting discussions around blueprints, when great ideas for new uses of this new space flew around the room, will also think of what might have been and feel regret. What a shame. 

These funds were lacking because the libraries have not been targeted in any of the university's recent capital campaigns. Why is that? The answer most often forthcoming seems to be this: Because we are in such a rapidly changing environment for libraries, because we cannot yet see their future shape, it is not wise to pour resources into what looks increasingly like old technology, i.e., books, paper, shelving, and so forth.

This is not a satisfactory answer, for at least one reason. Libraries are not and never have been "old technologies." Consider that librarians were among the first to recognize and to develop the possibilities presented by information technology for their profession. They saw it represented a great opportunity to adapt powerfully efficient tools to the uses and the users of the library. Librarians are by definition and profession conservators, but they have always also had to be very progressive. Throughout its long history, since Alexandria and Babel, the library in order to survive has eagerly adapted the tools and structures available in its environment. Libraries are places of conservation; they are entrusted to preserve the whole of humankind's archive. Because it is their duty to survive, they will always be eager to innovate. 

It is this tradition of innovation at the heart of the library that is being overlooked when the old vs. new technology argument is allowed to prevail, whether in the Board of Trustees room or elsewhere in Bovard. Reluctance to fund the library generously or even adequately cannot, therefore, be excused as prudence in the face of changing technology. It is not prudent to withhold resources from libraries and librarians right when they need the most help freely to adopt and exploit new possibilities for their profession. This help must come in the form of significant budget enhancements targeted specifically at the libraries. For it is this specificity of the library and the librarian's profession that needs to receive enhanced recognition at our university. 

Their recognition has been diminished ever since the creation a few years ago of the Information Services Division, which subsumed within its highly bureaucratic structure the former Division of Libraries. This unwieldy organization has had unhealthy effects on the libraries. As faculty we are and should be alarmed when we learn that many matters of librarianship are now being decided by ISD staff who are not trained as librarians. And every year as we watch the acquisition budget fall further behind the increasing costs of print and electronic materials, we are hard pressed to see how ISD has protected the research interests of the faculty and students who depend on the library.

To conclude, then, some initial recommendations: Let's dissolve ISD, or at least let's extricate the library division from its top-heavy flow chart. Let's admit that we made a mistake, as California did when it deregulated its power utilities. Certainly our mistake has to be easier to undo if we do not delay any longer. And let's get serious about finding and committing resources to the improvement of the research libraries; otherwise we risk just repainting the façade.