‘ At present the“ g.P.E.I_. library is suf- fering from substantial .losses due-to a contin- uous theft of both books and periodicals. The sproblem now faced by lthe library staff is fhow to curtail this gloss. To give you some fmagnitude of this pro- :blem last year the loss lif replaced would cost \in the area of $15,000. lHowever,'the solution is not just a monetary =one for most materials gin the library at the 'present time.cannot be thought. 'This is due to the fact that most of ‘books are not in print at the present time and cannot be acquired through publishing houses. Also period- -icals are not kept in stock after they have first appeared. Even current editions. very few people seem to rea— lize this. "So What!" you say! However, give some thought to the consequences of re- moving a book without it going through cir— .culation, even if you do bring it back at some future date. The fact is that if a book is not in the stacks and it is also-not.checked ‘out, it is considered‘ lost as far as the li- brary is concerned. This of course means that any one else who .requires the book is just outoof luck. Ybu' are thus imposing your I nown.personal desires on ‘others, not eXactly a product of the age of aquarious. Are you .really beating the sy- stemor are you just wheating yourselves?

The latter is the case if you think about it.

‘ The problem does exist so what can he done about it. The university librarian, in a memo to the sen- ate,‘stated some of the alternatives, which‘ are : 1) Continue at present and just absorb the loss. 2)Install turn-stiles Twith one way entrance Zgates and exiting traf- fic flowing past the circulation desk. Persons and briefcases

.3)The above but use ;commissionaires to do .the checking.

4) Have closed stacks ‘and runners to retrieve Irequested materials.

35 Kaye supervised‘enL trance to and from stack areas.

LIBRARY DILEM

6) Installation of tech-. nical devices viz. metalic strips, wires, paint, etc. in library materials which trig— ger warning devices at the exit.

0f the above there- is Only one which does ‘ not in some way hinder the use of the library by its patrons. This r is statement 1). HOW“. ever, the loss is no longer possible if the: library is to function in the best interests of its users. There—

:fore one of the alter- ,native methods of_sur—

véilancé*will have to

be used. (Given that

to close the stacks is: just not acceptable toi anyone.) we now can ' throw out the ides of hidden materials to trigger alarms because this is just too expen— sive and it is not foolproof. Also stu- dents. though cheap labour, cannot be ems played as checkers due to personal bias. There- Tfore, what is the ‘answer?

3)...the commissionaires do the checking. Or what is popularly known athethe K—Mart mentality. 'Is this what you want? ‘Of course not! You will be the first to s ‘say that your human liberities are being jeopardimd. ,Wherljach

of you is considered 'guilty by a guard un- til proven otherwise.

IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT?

,page...l3r

Therefore the qmn is on you to stop this from occurring. Ygg, who frequentlthe 1 regy must change your borrow- ‘ing habits by:

1) checking out all ;materials 2) returning non—pro- ‘cessed material whiCh is outtat this time. 3) make an effort so that others do not take advantage of the "policy of trust" at the library and thus cause the library to enforce one of the aforementioned policies warning has been. given therefore act now to keep your li- brary the most liber- al in Canad39

Richard‘o'lrien

O O O C O

TORONTO (cup) - The Univeré‘ sity of Toronto Library Gown-— cil yesterday (Feb. 2) voted to refuse undergraduated ao— cass to the stacks of the John Roberts Research Library, igh noring nearly 4000 petitions demanding entry.

In the aftermath of the Councilcdecision studr dents were reported plan- ning more direct action to press their demand for open

stacks.

A meeting of the Uni- versity's senate will alsd” be asked to reconsider the Council‘s decision. How— ever, there is little chance that the non-student body will reverse yesterday's decision.

The petitions, prin- ted in a recent issue of the student newspaper were dumped on the council table shortly before the faculty-dominated council voted 19-5 to reject the student demand.

University officials havs sought to keep under-- grads out of the thirteen storey library, claiming that the stacks would be ovarcrowed and that the undergrads would be likely to miSplace books as they glanced through the stack" collection.

About 4500 graduates and faculty members will have full access to the library's stack collect- ions. Other students will have to order books from the stacks, using the*E§rd catalogues as their sole source of information a- bout what material is hidden away in the lib- raryisvbowels.