Reserve room frustrates many

Many students have a foolproof excuse for failed reading assignments this year, and they are not happy about it. Three weeks into the school year, the Mudd Reserve Room is still having problems providing texts for students.

A number of reasons have been given for the problems in the reserve room, but many students are not satisfied with the excuses. "None of my readings are on the shelves," said college senior Alia Fink. "When we go to class, only a few people have done the reading. It's really frustrating."

The greatest number of complaints have come from professors, according to reserve room workers. College junior Keymasha Hall said, "Students kind of like it because they don't have to do the reading."

Although they are not happy with the lack of materials, many professors understand the difficulties. "It's not a simple job," said Professor of Religion James Dobbins. It strikes me that they are trying to operate as they normally do. They're dependent on the cooperation of professors."

Oberlin College is one of very few institutions that have open stacks reserve rooms. At most colleges and universities, students must submit requests to the librarians, who then pull the books for the students, or are only allowed to read in a specific reserve room. Oberlin has attempted to provide its students with more freedom and responsibility by allowing them to personally check books out of reserve.

Over 200 classes have items on reserve, totaling over 8,000 texts by the end of the semester. Other items are available in separate reserve rooms in the science and art libraries. Neither of the other reserve rooms have had problems this year, partly due to handling fewer class lists.

The unusually long delay in providing books for students can not be blamed on one specific problem, according to Reserve Room supervisor Julie Weir. "It has been a very unusual year," she said. "We're starting to catch up, at least to the point where we would normally be."

A major reason given for the delay was the crash of OBIS over Labor Day weekend. The reserve room lost five days of work and a number of texts were stolen during that time, as the library could not easily keep track of the material. "They unfortunately believe their needs are greater than the rest of their classmates," Weir lamented.

"Often there are new books to buy for new teachers; orders always take longer to get in," Weir said. There are a large number of new and visiting faculty this year, which compounds the problem. New faculty generally submit lists far beyond the Aug. 16 deadline, as did a number of returning faculty.

The Co-op bookstore has also had a number of problems obtaining books (see related article above). As a result professors have had to request that many books normally purchased by students be put on reserve. "We are compensating for a lot of what they didn't bring in," said Weir.

According to Weir, all the books which were requested before the deadline are already on the shelves. Only those submitted late have not been filled.

ExCo instructors have been particularly affected, as virtually none of their readings have made it to the shelves. "ExCo doesn't normally get priority," said reserve room worker junior Lindsay Adelsheim.

"Most students have been really patient. Now people are getting pissed off," said Adelsheim.

A lucky one: This student was able to find a reading at the Reserve Room, but others haven't had such luck. Problems with OBIS and the Co-op Bookstore were cited as reasons many readings are still not on the shelves. (photo by Noah Mewborn)