A TALE OF TWO MEETINGS

Controversy has arisen after it emerged at the end of last term that Glasgow University’s Management Group has decided that the Adam Smith Library, the main study area for social science students, is to close.

Social science postgraduates, who will be ejected from their present location at Lilybank House to make room for a new Department of Social Work, will be relocated in the reading area of the library, which will be converted at a cost of £332k. It is still unclear as to what will happen to the area of the library that houses the bookshelves. Objections to the proposed plans have been raised by staff and students affected by them, who claim that they have not been fully consulted.

The plans became known in June when Michael Lessnoff, a senior member of the politics department, complained at a meeting of Senate that the decision had been made behind closed doors. He attacked the stunned members of the body, calling them a “secretive cabal”, and claiming that university management had treated everyone with contempt. A report presented to Senate stated that the closure had “been agreed” and that “other operational and financial issues will be discussed within the facility and with the staff concerned”. Lessnoff claims to have raised the matter with the Dean of Faculty, Anton Muscatelli, and been told that “the plans were plans only and not decisions”. He later attacked the lack of democracy within the Senate and questioned its effectiveness, saying it “very rarely asserts itself”.

The new Social Work Department will bring together the existing departments of Glasgow and Strathclyde universities to provide for the new Social Work Honours Degree, recently announced by the Scottish Executive. Glasgow University offered the facilities at Lilybank to accommodate the joint venture, applying for Strategic Change funding from the SE to refurbish the site. The result of the funding application is due to be announced in December 2003 while a faculty discussion paper states the planned refurbishment of the library is to begin in November of the same year.

John Andrew Murray, the SRC’s Vice President Education, who has launched a campaign against the library’s closure, called the Management Group’s decision “sneaky”. He said “myself and other people on the SRC have got nothing against social work, we just don’t think we’ve got the room for it just now. At the end of the day the university just thinks about the money and that’s their bottom line.”

The opposition to the plans prompted a special meeting of the social science faculty last Wednesday, at which Noreen Burrows, Dean of Faculty of Law and Financial Studies, announced that a final decision would be made by the Joint Faculties Management Group at the end of October and that the purpose of the meeting was “consultation only”.

Concerns were raised at the meeting by postgraduates, who believed the security of their research material and their ability to carry out that research would be compromised by being situated in an open-plan environment. Representatives of various departments also expressed their dismay, one anthropology lecturer calling the plan “reprehensible” and “a disastrous decision”.

The issue of what would become of all the books was also discussed on Wednesday. The Adam Smith Library is currently home to some 30k books of which, according to a report on the plan’s impact on library services, around 10k would be transferred to the short loan collection on Level 2, and another 10k would be transferred either to Level 6 or to a “remote store” for safe-keeping. Lessnoff pointed out that this left 10k books unaccounted for, to which a member of library staff replied that some books would inevitably have to be destroyed but only old editions that were no longer relevant anyway.

The report also acknowledged that the Main Library would have to create 161 reading spaces to replace those that would be lost in the AS library, plus another 81 places that would go to make room for the transferred books. Fred Hay, Economics Director of Undergraduate Studies, questioned the logistics of this, stating “I just don’t see the numbers adding up”. In answer to this it was claimed that 55k books would have to be removed from the Main Library to make room for the reading spaces. Helen Durnell, Assistant Director of Library Services and author of the report, admitted, with reference to the closure, that “library services would not necessarily have chosen to suggest this”.

A general disgruntlement emerged at last week’s meeting over what some social science staff regard as the passing over of their departments when it comes to funding from the university. It was felt by many that the Adam Smith building was long overdue for improvement and that lack of space and facilities was a general problem in the faculty. Muscatelli stated that the building was unlikely to undergo any renovation as such a move would cost an estimated £10m and he did not think it would be possible to find the money.

More than one member of staff present at the meeting contended that they would be less opposed to the library’s closure if they had been presented with an outline of the reasons for using Lilybank House for the new department. Hay said he would like “a clear demonstration of the necessity of the transfer from Lilybank House”, at which Muscatelli promised to have another meeting to discuss the rational of the social work merger.