Hoover Library <fwd>

[Glen Worthey]

Dear Colleagues,

I forward the following in the spirit of sharing information, and not as
an official spokesperson for Stanford University.

Glen Worthey
Stanford University Libraries


--- Begin Forwarded Message ---

>X-Sender: etch at mail-csli.stanford.edu
>Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 08:46:39 -0800
>From: John Etchemendy <etch at csli.stanford.edu>
>Subject: Hoover Library
>
>Concerned users of Hoover Library:
>
>  From the scores of email messages I received over the last
>few days, I gather there have been some extraordinarily
>misinformed messages about the future of the Hoover Library
>and Archives posted on various bulletin boards.  Stanford
>has no plans to close Hoover Library or to reduce the
>funding for collections of either archival or non-archival
>materials.
>
>The current situation:
>
>The Hoover Library currently houses archives, special
>collections, rare books and documents, plus portions of the
>University's general collection in certain areas, such as
>Eastern Europe and Asia.  The long and short of it is that
>Hoover Library is out of space.  It cannot continue
>accumulating material in all of these collections without
>moving some of its holdings to another location, either to
>one of the auxiliary libraries (on another part of campus)
>or to an off-campus location.  Thus the Hoover Library's
>current options are to stop collecting any new material or
>to store portions of its material at a relatively
>inconvenient distance.
>
>The current proposal:
>
>The Hoover Institution and the Stanford University
>Libraries have jointly submitted to me a proposal to
>ameliorate this situation.  The proposal would involve
>moving the general library collection (i.e., the non-rare,
>non-archival material) to Green Library, Stanford's main
>library.  (For those of you who are not familiar with the
>Stanford campus, Green Library is approximately 100 yards
>away from Hoover Library.)  This move would allow all parts
>of the collections to continue to grow, and keep the
>material in rough proximity.
>
>The proposal does not involve any budget savings.  In fact,
>this fall I have received, and am considering, proposals to
>increase the budgets for both archival and general
>collections at the Hoover.  If we move forward with this
>proposal, the budget for the general library collection,
>along with the relevant staff, will move to the main
>library, but the budget will not be decreased.
>
>Access:
>
>I imagine many of you, as outside users of Hoover Library,
>are concerned about whether this will affect access to the
>material.  You will be pleased to know that the change will
>have benefits on that score.  Users of Hoover Library will
>be allowed access to the general material stored in Green,
>though they will not be able to check out this material.
>(Since they are not allowed to check out material from
>Hoover at present, this is not an additional restriction.)
>They will in fact have increased access to the general
>material, since Green's hours of operation are considerably
>longer than Hoover's, and will also be allowed to browse
>and use any other material in the Green stacks.
>
>The Hoover Library is a Stanford treasure, and the idea
>that we would close it or otherwise diminish it is absurd.
>The goal of the current proposal is to find the best way to
>continue building the collections, while still making them
>as accessible to all users as the harsh Euclidean realities
>of space constraints permit.
>
>As I say, this is still just a proposed solution that we
>are currently considering.  Before making a final decision,
>I will be consulting our local faculty who depend on all
>the Hoover collections, to make sure this is the best
>available option.
>
>Trust me, the leadership at Stanford is not making a
>decision out of ignorance or financial necessity that would
>destroy a national research treasure like the Hoover
>Library!
>
>John Etchemendy
>Provost
>Stanford University
>
--- End Forwarded Message ---

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