Staff photo by Cynthia Kaplan
The university's library systems, including the Doheny research library, slipped from 30th to 34th in a national survey.
Library ranking now 34th; slips in national standing
By Carmen Chandler
Staff Writer
The drop in the university’s overall library ranking from 30th to 34th in a recent survey has added fuel to the student senate's criticism that the administration is not paying enough attention to the faltering librarv system.
The annual survey of 101 university libraries, conducted by the Association of Research Libraries during the 1981-82 school year, was published last week in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The association based its results on the number of volumes, how many were added in the last year, the number of current serials and how much money was spent on materials and salaries.
Based on the survey results, the library at Harvard University was ranked first, followed in order by UC Berkeley, UCLA, Yale University and Stanford University.
But Carol Mandel, a representative of the ARL, played down the importance of the ranking.
She said the survey is conducted every year by the association to give its members an idea of where they stand in size and to help them determine their managing levels.
The results are simply managing tools, she said, calling them “just raw figures. You have to take into account the size of the university and what its graduate programs are."
Peggy Johnson, assistant university librarian for technical services, agreed and explained that the university's library system should be compared with other libraries of similar size such as Pennsylvania State University, the University of Georgia and the University of Kansas. It should not, she said, be compared with one as large as Harvard, whose library' has almost six times as many volumes as does this university.
“When we first saw the rankings the first thing we said was 'Why did we drop so much?' " Johnson said. “Then we began
to look at it in the context of the way they developed the index.
"It is not as large a drop as it appears on the surface," she said, adding that a slight decline in one or two of the areas looked at by the association could cause a drop of several places in ranking.
"We've actually increased in the total number of volumes. Last year we ranked 36th, this year we're ranked 35th," she said.
But Sharon Dolezal, chair of the senate's academic affairs committee and a member of the university's newly formed library' committee, said the drop in ranking demonstrated the inadequacy of the library system.
"I think it's ironic that the universities we like to compare ourselves to, Berkeley, UCLA, Harvard and Stanford, are all in the top 10," Dolezal said.
"It was likely (the ranking) would drop because the university has done nothing to improve the library. It's obvious other universities have continued to expand theirs," she added.
She placed the blame for the
drop in ranking on an inadequate budget, saying that a large amount of money is needed to improve the library' from its present situation.
Dolezal said she thought the university's administrators are getting tired of hearing this criticism, but she is not sure if th«v are listening.
'Tf the universitv would give the commitment it should, we could get started now. No matter w'hat the university says it is doing, it is not. It may care but caring isn't enough. Action is needed," she said.
Johnson, however, disagreed.
She said the university does care about the library' system and realizes that improvements should be made. But, she said, the university simply does not have enough money to address every problem it faces.
Nonetheless, there was not even an allowance for inflation in the library's budget during the period covered by the survey.
"Since then, there has been an increase in the budget. (The ranking) may very’ well go back up," Johnson said.
New system creates drop in unsettled fees
By Sheldon Ito
Staff Writer
Although more than 3,500 students have yet to pay their tuition this semester, the number of unsettled fee bills has dropped from the same period last year, primarily because of a system that automatically credits financial aid to a fee bill.
Jimi Bingham, director of student financial operations, said the new system, established last semester, is the major factor behind a 22 percent decrease in the number of unsettled fee bills this semester as compared to last spring. There were 3,731 unsettled fee bills as of Feb. 19. At the same time last year 4,789 fee bills remained unsettled.
"In the past it was a very cumbersome process to settle a fee bill," Bingham said.
He added that students used to have to visit a number of different places and complete a large amount of paperwork to receive the credit that is now automatically' placed on the fee bill.
Bingham said it is in a school's best interests to pressure students to pay their tuition, "because if the student doesn't pay, (the schools) don't get their income."
"The more leverage they can use against the individual student, the better off they are," Bingham added.
Bingham said he did not know of any university school that had an official policy in pressuring students to pay. How'ever, the school of architecture last semester issued a deadline for the payment of fee bills in a letter to students enrolled in a series of courses known as "design studios." But after reconsidering it this semester, Robert Harris, the dean of the school of architecture, revised • the letter and eliminated the deadline. It now reads, “Please take care of the matter (the unsettled fee bill) promptly, so that you will remain in good standing.”
"We look at (the letters) as a service to the student and we get very good results from it," said Doris Rolfe, assistant to the dean of the school of architecture.
Rolfe emphasized that the letters are "reminders, not threats." No one failed to meet the deadline last semester, she said.
Michael Klineman, assistant dean for student affairs in the school of business administration, said the reason the business school and other schools don’t have policies to crack down on students with unsettled fee bills is because "most professors don't like to get into the business of bill collecting."
Because of this reluctance, the student financial operations office has had to work on the problem itself. One of the wavs they have tried to do this was through the creation last year of the student accounts office, located in the financial services building.
"The purpose for which we created that office is to identify' students who have problems with the settlement of their fee bills and to attempt to solve those problems," Bingham said.
Bingham urged students with fee bill settlement problems to see a student accounts counselor.
'They'll do anything within their power to help out," he said. “It's probably one of the few places on campus that you can be guaranteed that someone will give you the necessary attention."
In the planning stages is another service designed to help students pay' their fee bills. The "Trojan installment plan" will allow students next semester to pay their tuition over a seven-month period.
University archives 'bulging at seams'
By Brenda Wong
Staff Writer
The word "archives," usually conjures up images of a cavernous room filled with dusty memorabilia. This image may be earned in many cases, but the university's archives, or more accurately, information vault, is the antithesis of that conception.
Occupying a meager 1,400 square feet in the basement of
Three Stooges 'woop' it up
A poke in the eye for Hollywood
By Mark Gill
Editor
It may not have been good enough for Delta Kappa Alpha, but a tribute to the Three Stooges was as good a way as any for an estimated 250 people to spend Friday night.
Mark Carande of the Speakers Committee began his personal vendetta for a Stooges tribute about a year ago. Angered that Hollywood Boulevard's Walk of Fame did not have a star for Curly, Moe and Larry, and that DKA, the cinema fratemitv on campus, would not sponsor a Stooges film, he sought out Joan and Norman Maurer, daughter and son-in-law of Moe, the late head Stooge.
The result — two hours of "woop, woop, woops" for those like John Buchovecky, a junior in communications who "didn't have much else to do," and for those like Artie Barnes,
"just a big fanatic" who "couldn't pass up this opportunity to see my idol, Curly, and cohorts."
It was a predominantly male audience, a fact w'hich one of the few females there, Edie Mar-kus, a senior in French and sociology, attributed to women not being "big on slapstick."
Real or perceived gender differences aside, most of those in the audience at Norris Cinema Theatre enjoyed the visual and verbal slapstick, if their laughter, applause and Stooges imitations were any indication.
Witness a scene from "Disorder in the Court":
Attorney: "Will you speak English? Drop the vernacular."
Curly (looking at his hat): "Vernacular.
(Continued on page 6)
Doheny Library, the university archives "is the bowels of the library," said Paul Christopher, university archivist.
The archives' home in the library has been changed four times in the past 50 years, each time because of inadequate space.
"We're bulging at the seams," Christopher said. "There are even some archival donations that are sitting in cardboard boxes in a room adjacent to the archives. I haven't had the time or space to sort them out."
Previously, the archives was located on the third floor of Doheny Library and in "a vaulted room below the main stairs of the library’,'' Christopher said.
Now the library’ is filled to capacity with a million volumes. This means the only space left for the archives is in the basement.
"The university has just purchased a large storage fadlit*' (once an armory) nearby," Christopher said. "Hopefullv, the archives will get a large amount of space."
When the library' was built in 1932, the ground floor plan indicated space was allocated for the archives. But the university has never had a fulltime archivist, Christopher said.
He pointed out that while his (Continued on page 3)