Word: systemization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Harvard’s massive library system is a university treasure. Preserving the quality and size of this rich academic asset is a worthy goal, and even in the midst of a recession, when cuts must be made and services must be discarded, the library system should be one of the last to feel the pinch. Hopefully, this principle will guide the university’s plan to revamp the library system to make it more centralized, digitized, and cost-effective, allowing Harvard’s collections to emerge from budget cuts more or less intact...
...plan to reform the Harvard College Library system, which was recently detailed in the university’s Library Task Force Report, aims to reduce the costs of maintaining the vast but fragmented Harvard College Library system by uniting the university’s 73 libraries under a central administrative body, transitioning to digital books in lieu of physical copies, and participating in book-lending programs with other schools...
Unifying the disparate elements of the library system makes sense, although it is not without its drawbacks. Student concerns that this will lead to the closing of departmental libraries are not unreasonable, but they are outweighed by the fact that centralization of libraries has the potential to make a convoluted system more navigable and accessible for everyone...
...digitization have their problems but are on the whole positive changes that are not at odds with maintaining the excellence of the university’s offerings. However, engaging in book-lending programs with other schools appears to be a less elegant solution to budgetary issues. The book-sharing system would diminish the immediate accessibility of texts and undermine the growth of a valuable academic resource. We should focus instead on acquiring texts so that they are accessible to students on demand, rather than participating in lending programs that open up competition for books to a wider audience and make...
...believe the health-care system is presently in less-than-robust condition, the argument that we’ll become less dynamic with change makes little sense. If you take a moment to reflect on the last few years, Brooks’s premise that the unregulated market normally directs capital to the fresh, flourishing, and socially productive doesn’t seem entirely truthful. Indeed, we’ve seen throughout the economic crisis that unregulated capital is often prone to fall to the aged, entrenched, and socially disconnected...