Mudd,
CIT Funds Cut In Wake of Financial Difficulties
by Faith Richards
When
students enter the doors of Mudd, they rarely think of the amount
of money that is needed to meet the operating costs of a college
library. However, a significant portion of Oberlins annual
budget is needed to maintain the services that the library provides
to the students and professors of the College. With a high campus
awareness of budget cuts affecting the Multicultural Resource Center
and Athletics Department, the fact that all areas of the College
are being asked to reduce their operating budgets for the 2002-2003
year can be overlooked.
When budget cuts were announced at a recent meeting of administrators,
faculty and staff, the library and the Center for Information Technology
were informed that together they needed to reduce their budgets
significantly. According to this weeks issue of The Chronicle
of Higher Education, which covered Oberlins extensive budget
deficit, the CIT and Mudd will have to reduce operating costs by
$250,000 next year. Although Mudd and the CIT have separate budgets,
they must determine together how much money can be cut from each
budget to reach the administrative goal for their budget reduction.
Ray English, the director of libraries on Oberlin campus, was quick
to explain that this reduction in the libraries budget will
not affect the resources that it provides. He said that he is hopeful
that we will be able to meet the targets without any significant
reduction in the services the library offers. The largest
portion of the libraries budget goes to pay both the professional
and student staff, while the second largest portion is allotted
to upkeep information resources: books, journals and electronic
licenses for online databases and periodicals. English was very
positive in his outlook on the budget cut, saying that changes would
be made in the most efficient way possible so that students would
not really be affected. The library is lucky in one way with its
budget: it has endowment funds that can be used to support the operating
budget and reduce the effect of the administrative reduction.
The CIT is not quite so lucky. John Bucher, director of the CIT
said that with the budget cuts, the CIT will not be providing as
many services to students as it did this year. Although he was unable
to offer any specific information about which areas of the CIT will
be affected by the reduction in costs, he did say that there will
be some visible reduction in services. The CIT does want to minimize
the impact that its budget cuts will have on the students, but will
not be able to completely maintain its current level of service.
Students feelings about the budget cuts are mixed. I think
that there are many more places that could use cutting back,
sophomore Teo Gibson said.
However, other students are concerned that budget cuts may have
an effect the overall character of the library. I think that
its stupid that they have to cut the library budget. Its
a wonderful place because not only is it a repository of governmental
documents and countless volumes of literature, its also a
building with great social opportunity, first-year Kipp Williams
said.
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