NC State, UNC-system schools face library hour cuts

While N.C. State University and other UNC-system schools are facing cuts to their library hours, UNC-CH students are still able to study in the library until the wee hours of the morning.

Due to budget cuts systemwide, campus libraries have had to prioritize their services — often reducing the number of scholarly journals offered or even cutting operational hours. The N.C. General Assembly reduced the UNC system’s budget by $65 million this academic year.

NCSU libraries lost about 5 percent of their funding, or $1.3 million, because library funding was considered an administrative expense and not an academic expense, said Carolyn Argentati, deputy director of NCSU libraries, in an email.

Argentati said NCSU’s academic colleges only saw a cut of about 3 percent to their budgets.

“Many years of cuts to the library collection due to repeated, annual budget reductions and inflation in the cost of library materials have weakened our ability to support the essential research that fuels the university’s competitiveness and is fundamental to our mission,” she said.

UNC-CH has taken approximately $235 million in cuts during the past five years.

UNC-CH’s libraries took a financial hit in 2011, when about $4 million was cut from their acquisitions budget in 2011, forcing the cancellation of 1,167 subscriptions and more than 1,000 law journals. It also lost 24 positions that year.

Still, since 2004, there has been only one occasion where library hours have been questioned, said Sarah Michalak, associate provost for UNC Libraries. Davis Library’s hours were reduced from 2 a.m. to midnight briefly in 2011.

Michalak said the Rams Club stepped in at the last minute. with a $35,000 donation to maintain the library’s original schedule.

“My feeling is that we should pursue all the other budget cutting priorities first before we cut library hours because people are so dependent on them,” she said.

Argentati said NCSU only considers cutting library hours as a last resort in its budget.

“Rather, we work with the university community to take into account the costs and benefits of the full range of resources and services that we provide — considering, for example, current trends in library use and which services or resources affect the largest numbers of people,” she said.

NCSU’s library is not the only one in the UNC system to have taken hits from budget cuts — Appalachian State University had to recently cut back library hours as well.

Fayetteville State University has coped with its budget reductions by reducing their academic journal subscriptions. Bobby Wynn, Fayetteville State’s director of library services, said more than 50 percent of the collections’ budget was cut this year.

“In terms of what we have done, we have significantly cut our journal collection and we have also reduced our database collection,” he said. “The cancellations have been made, but the subscription period that we have now will run until the end of December, so the students in the spring will notice it more.”

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