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alleged hoover closing



Here's something I received:




From: John Etchemendy <etch@csli.stanford.edu (by way of Gayle Mulvey)
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

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