Library service reductions have been announced which will see a cut in a number of core library services. In an email from the Deputy Librarian, Jessie Kurtz, to all academic staff, postgraduate and undergraduate students, seven reductions in service were enumerated.
Cuts in Counter Services, that is the check-in and out of books will be cut so it will now stop at 18:00 on Fridays and the email also notes that there may be more cuts to Counter Services as it may be effected by staff absence.
Stacks and Santry orders will be reduced to a twenty-four hour service which means books ordered online will be available for collection after twenty-four hours. This is a change from a delivery every ninety minutes for stacks and two deliveries daily for Santry orders.
The Students’ Union Education Officer said that the library is in a ‘very difficult position with the public sector hiring moratorium.’ He went on to say that ‘the Students’ Union are working very closely with the library to minimize disruption to core library services and the campaign to improve library services is ongoing and if there is any change in moratorium we expect this decision to be reversed.’
This announcement follows a student protest in the library organized by the Students’ Union in November directed at ‘cuts made to library services.’ The Students’ Union made a number of demands to the College in a letter for the Provost.
The letter demanded that the library open on Sundays and that ‘Sunday opening hours become a core service offered by the library and regularise it as a standard year-long service.’ The letter went on to insist that the ‘library bring its opening hours and service hours in line with the national average to be agreed between the Students’ Union and the library.’
The Trinity library is the second worst in the country in terms of opening hours totalling seventy one point five hours, while the national average is eighty hours per week. UCD’s library
opens for 100 hours per week and is at the top of the opening hours chart.
The College has said that the service reductions in the library are as a result of the recruitment moratorium which has ‘resulted in the non-filling of eleven full-time permanent posts.’ The recruitment moratorium was introduced by the Minister for Finance on March 27, 2009 and affects all the public sector.
The moratorium stipulates that no public service post may be filled, regardless of how it arose, by hiring.
This is subject to an employment control framework which allows third level institutions an exception where it is ‘necessary in the case of academic and support posts that are considered essential to maintaining core service activities.’
