Thirty-one technical services staff at Harvard University’s Widener Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have written and distributed an “open letter to the Harvard community” claiming that next year they will be forced by the administration to relocate to offices nearly a mile away in Central Square.
According to the December 8 Harvard Crimson newspaper, the letter asserts that moving 60–100 acquisitions and cataloging employees out of Widener will affect the quality of their work and service to students and faculty. Librarians and library assistants are concerned that such a move would deprive them of instant access to necessary resources in the stacks.
Harvard College Librarian Nancy M. Cline told the paper that no decision on relocating workers had been made yet, though upcoming renovations will result in a reshuffling of offices throughout the building. Citing an ongoing study of each operating unit’s need to be close to the stacks, Cline said the library did not want to place employees at a disadvantage.
Posted December 13, 1999.