Library makes cuts

In response to the state’s budget crisis, the University’s library system is cutting its operating hours by 20 percent, reducing book and journal purchases further, and ending patrons’ unrestricted printing from library computers, effective immediately.

The library will have to make a 20 percent cut in operating hours, University Librarian Karin Wittenborg said. A detailed schedule of the new hours is posted at http://www.lib.virginia.edu/fallhours02.html. Clemons will keep its regular schedule.

“Please know that we are doing everything we can to keep the doors open … and that we aim to restore hours as soon as the budget permits,” Wittenborg said.

The library also will be unable to re-hire as many as 80 students. The total library staff is now down by 11 percent and puts the library at a 1976 staffing level, even though there has been a 21 percent growth in enrollment since then, she said.

The library will stop subsidizing printing from computer work stations, which will save an estimated $200,000 in supplies and maintenance, plus the equivalent of two full-time staff to service the printers and help patrons.