Robert Darnton: The task force is meant to be a force for good, and its primary task is to make the library better.

Dear Colleagues,

As most readers of Library Notes probably know, a task force chaired by Provost Steven Hyman has been appointed to study the University Library and come up with suggestions for its improvement. According to the announcement, made on February 27, the task force is to recommend ways for the entire library system to be adapted to the information needs of the 21st century. The charge and the list of members of the task force follow on the next page. I write to provide some context for this initiative.

No one among the readers of Library Notes is likely to question the central importance of the library to the life of the University. But how can we express it most effectively? We have plenty of statistics: holdings of 16 million volumes, 7.5 million photographs, millions of manuscript pages, more than 10 million bibliographic records in HOLLIS, and more than 6 million digital objects in the Digital Repository Service. We can also point to the services provided by our library community—in access, reference and research, IT, preservation, and other areas—which bring the collections to life.

And we can cite our history, beginning with the beginning of the college itself and the bequest of John Harvard’s 400 volumes in 1638. Since then, the library has grown, sprouting branches and sending out shoots, until it now fills several landscapes. As the system has evolved, Harvard’s libraries have adapted to environments, acquired identities, developed traditions, and commanded the loyalties of the intellectual communities they serve. Whatever the task force recommends, their institutional integrity should be preserved.

That thought leads to the most important point to make about the task force: it is meant to make a great library greater; it is not intended merely to produce cutbacks.

To be sure, the current fiscal challenges have provided the impetus for a general re-evaluation of HUL. When every tub is forced to shrink its bottom, how could this enormous library system, which costs more than $150 million a year, not come under scrutiny? Despite great efforts to avoid duplication, notably in subscriptions to serials, many services and collections throughout HUL could be organized more efficiently. The task force will not behave in the manner of efficiency experts, but it will look for opportunities to integrate all the parts of the whole and to make them function more effectively.

In order to do so, it needs to hear from those who know the system best—that is, from the professional experts who keep the Harvard Libraries going. For the library community, there will be forums for discussion, meetings within individual libraries, and a web site for feedback and suggestions. The task force will not be a closed investigation, working in camera. Its existence is bound to arouse anxieties. Who cannot be worried at a time when the entire University is contracting and each of us has seen her or his savings shrink? But as can be seen by the following mission statement, the task force is meant to be a force for good, and its primary task is to make the library better.

Cordially,

Robert Darnton

Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the University Library