Anyone have the skinny on what's going on at UCLA?
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Forwarded letter:
August 19, 2009
Gary Strong
University Librarian
University of California, Los Angeles
Dear Mr. Strong:
This letter is intended to express our outrage and dismay at the
impending closure of the Arts Library, an entity that is unique on
the West Coast in its offerings and resources. As instructors—at UCLA
and beyond—in the arts, architecture, art history, film, television,
theater and the humanities we all see the UCLA Arts Library as an
indispensable resource to fulfill our pedagogical mission. As
creators and researchers we all see the UCLA Arts Library as a
critical part of our respective practices. Furthermore, a dedicated
arts collection is a staple of all great universities public and
private. On all of these levels it is unconscionable that this
library, one that services the myriad needs of hundreds of faculty
and thousands of students in some of our nation’s best departments in
the arts and humanities could even be considered for closure.
Those who did not see the closure of the Arts Library buried in your
blog entry of August 4, 2009 found out about it though word of mouth,
Facebook, email and water cooler rumors. The lack of any effort on
the part of library management to consult arts and humanities faculty
about these plans points to a lack of transparency in the library’s
operations that we find most troubling. This lack of transparency is
further underscored by library management’s failure to consult with
the UCLA Academic Senate Committee on Library and Scholarly
Communication on this critical issue.
If the Arts Library closes, it is impossible to see how YRL and SRLF,
facilities that are already bursting at the seams, can accommodate an
additional 180,000+ objects. Given that in YRL’s renovations
accommodations are being made for meeting spaces—including a café
“with seating area and service counter”—it is even more difficult to
imagine how the Arts Library’s collections can possibly be brought
into this building. We are deeply concerned that once the Arts
Library closes its doors that its collections—some of which are
singular to this library—will be dispersed and rendered inaccessible.
We are equally concerned that the library’s excellent staff will
disappear with its collections.
We understand the seriousness of the budget situation; we understand
that over 85% of the library’s operating budget comes from 19900
funds; we understand that library management, like the rest of the
university, has had to make enormously difficult and painful
decisions regarding reductions. We do not understand library
management’s failure to apprise the Senate Library Committee—on which
you sit—of its plans before a decision was reached; we do not
understand library management’s failure to consult arts and
humanities faculty as a means of discussing the repercussions of this
closure or to come up with more tenable solutions to this crisis; we
do not understand library management’s failure to communicate its
decision (or the process in its making) directly to the UCLA
community. Such secrecy and opacity gives the impression that the
Arts Library closure was to be presented at the beginning of the
school year as a fait accompli. This is simply not acceptable.
We protest the closure of the Arts Library. We demand that you hold
an open meeting on this serious issue for interested faculty and
students at the beginning of fall quarter. At the end of the day, we
are deeply invested in the Arts Library, and we look forward to
coming up with a solution that will keep this vital institution in
operation.
Sincerely,
Steven D. Nelson, Associate Professor, Department of Art History,
Chair, UCLA Graduate Council
Eyal Amiran, Associate Professor, Department of Comparative
Literature, UC Irvine
Andrew Apter, Professor, Departments of History and Anthropology,
Director, James S. Coleman African Studies Center
George Baker, Associate Professor, Department of Art History
Janet Bergstrom, Professor, Cinema and Media Studies, Department of
Film, TV and Digital Media
Charlene Villaseñor Black, Associate Professor, Department of Art
History
Peter J. Bloom, Associate Professor, Department of Film and Media
Studies, UC Santa Barbara
Jennifer Bolande, Professor, Area Head, New Genres, Department of Art
Robert L. Brown, Professor, Department of Art History
Julia Bryan-Wilson, Associate Professor, Department of Art History,
UC Irvine
Emily Carmen, Visiting Professor, Antioch University and Otis College
of Art and Design
Dee Caruso, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Film, TV and
Digital Media
Sandra Caruso, Adjunct Associate Professor, Theater Department
Sue-Ellen Case, Professor and Chair, Ph.D. Program in Theater and
Performance Studies, Theater Department
Kathlyn M. Cooney, Assistant Professor, Department of Near Eastern
Languages and Cultures
Dana Cuff, Director cityLAB, Professor, UCLA Architecture and Urban
Design
Susan Downey, Professor, Department of Art History
Lauri Firstenberg, Visiting Faculty, Roski School of Fine Arts,
University of Southern California, Founder, Director and Curator, LA ART
Susan Leigh Foster, Professor, Department of World Arts and Cultures
Andrea Fraser, Professor, Department of Art
Gyula Gazdag, Professor, Production/Directing Program, Department of
Film, TV and Digital Media
David Gere, Professor, Department of World Arts and Cultures and
Director, Art | Global Health Center at UCLA
Sharon E. J. Gerstel, Professor, Department of Art History
Jonathan M. Hall, Assistant Professor, Department of Media Studies,
Pomona College
Lyn Hejinian, Professor, Department of English, UC Berkeley
Roger Herman, Professor, Department of Art
Karin Higa, Senior Curator of Art, Japanese American National Museum
Thomas S. Hines, Professor Emeritus, Departments of History and
Architecture and Urban Design
Jennifer Holt, Assistant Professor, Department of Film and Media
Studies, UC Santa Barbara
Neil Peter Jampolis, Distinguished Professor, Theater Department
Burglind Jungmann, Professor, Department of Art History
Shannon Kelley, Head of Public Programs, UCLA Film & Television Archive
Mary Kelly, Professor of Art and Critical Theory, Department of Art
Cecelia F. Klein, Professor, Department of Art History
Barbara Kruger, Professor, Department of Art
Miwon Kwon, Professor, Department of Art History
Juliet Koss, Associate Professor, Art History Department, Scripps
College
Ross Lipman, Film Restorationist, UCLA Film & Television Archive
Willem Henri Lucas, Professor and Chair, UCLA Design | Media Arts
Steve Mamber, Professor, Department of Film, TV and Digital Media
Denise Mann, Head, UCLA Producers Program, Associate Professor,
Department of Film, TV and Digital Media
Lyle Massey, Associate Professor, Department of Art History, UC Irvine
Rebeca Mendez, Professor, UCLA Design | Media Arts
Saloni Mathur, Associate Professor, Department of Art History
Donald McCallum, Professor, Department of Art History
Sarah P. Morris, Steinmetz Professor of Classical Archaeology and
Material Culture, Department of Classics and Cotsen Institute of
Archaeology
Aamir Mufti, Associate Professor, Department of Comparative Literature
Chon Noriega, Professor, Department of Film, TV and Digital Media,
Director, UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
Janet O’Shea, Associate Professor, Department of World Arts and Cultures
Frances Pohl, Professor, Department of Art History, Pomona College
(UCLA, Ph.D. 1985)
Lionel Popkin, Assistant Professor, Department of World Arts and
Cultures
Rebecca Prime, Critical Studies, Department of Film, TV, and Digital
Media
Alex Purves, Assistant Professor, Classics
Nancy Richardson, Professor, Department of Film, TV and Digital Media
Allen F. Roberts, Professor, Department of World Arts and Cultures
Mary Nooter Roberts, Professor, Department of World Arts and Cultures
Jean-Louis Rodrigue, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Theater Department
Michele Schreiber, Assistant Professor, Department of Film Studies,
Emory University
Jenny Sharpe, Professor, Department of English
Lytle Shaw, Assistant Professor, Department of English, New York
University
Eric Smoodin, Professor, Program in Film Studies, UC Davis (UCLA,
Ph.D. 1984)
Andrew Stewart, Nicholas C. Petris Professor of Greek Studies,
Departments of History of Art and Classics, UC Berkeley
Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei, Professor, Theater Department
Nancy J. Troy, Professor, Department of Art History, University of
Southern California
Dell Upton, Professor and Chair, Department of Art History
Victoria Vesna, Professor, UCLA Design | Media Arts
Edit Villarreal, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, Chair, MFA
Playwriting Program
James Welling, Professor, Department of Art
Joanna Woods-Marsden, Professor, Department of Art History
cc: Chancellor Gene Block
Executive Vice-Chancellor Scott Waugh
Vice-Chancellor Claudia Mitchell-Kernan
Dean Teri Schwartz
Dean Tim Stowell
Dean Chris Waterman
Professor Shane Butler, Chair, Academic Senate Committee on Library
and Scholarly Communication
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