Old as the university itself, McGill’s library system has undergone an almost continuous process of restructuring and adaptation since its foundation. While changes such as renovations are often McGill-specific in nature, some of the recent adaptations the library has undertaken point to growing trends and challenges faced by academic libraries across the world.

With diverse factors such as budgetary constraints, physical limitations, and an increased use of technology, the future of libraries is often difficult to predict by librarians and students alike, and can involve difficult choices with far-reaching consequences.

As the McGill Library system prepares to conduct a feasibility study in the upcoming months to address the possibility of future changes to the current system, the Tribune takes an in-depth look at McGill libraries, including how they have evolved over the university’s history, and how they are moving into the future.

 

History of McGill’s library system

The history of libraries at McGill begins with the founding of the Life Sciences Library in 1823. As the first medical library in Canada, the Life Sciences Library was the result of McGill’s acquisition of the Montreal Medical Institute, which owned a collection of medical texts that became the library.

The construction of more libraries followed: Redpath Hall was established in 1893 as a reading room, the Macdonald campus library was opened in 1907, and Birks Reading Room began as a co-operative with the Joint Board of Theological Colleges in 1912.

Individual departments also developed their own collections, due to a continual increase in the availability of print materials, according to Richard Virr, Head and Curator of Manuscripts who has worked in McGill’s library system for 30 years.

“By the 1950s, you had something like 45 or 50 libraries at McGill,” Virr said. “Whatever department, they might have their little working library because there just wasn’t any space in the main library.”

To address the need for more space, the McLennan Library Complex was built in 1969. Originally slated to serve as a library for graduate students, it currently serves as the largest library at McGill.

In the 1990s, research libraries across North America experienced more changes due to the increased availability of digital resources.

“We saw massive changes because of our exponential growth of electronic information, electronic journals, electronic books, digitization of photographs and images, and archives,” Lizabeth Wilson, dean of university libraries at the University of Washington, said. “For the first time, we started talking about buying access to the world’s knowledge through digital means.”

According to the records of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), an organization that monitors trends of its member research libraries, including McGill’s, library expenditure on digital materials increased every year between 1991 and 2011.

 

Current state of the system

The two most recently opened libraries at McGill, the Nahum Gelber Law Library and Marvin Duchow Music Library, were completed in 1998 and 2006 respectively. Their designs reflected a new priority in libraries.

“They had library [book collections] for years, what had happened was they needed space,” Virr said. “We’re returning almost to the time when libraries had major reading rooms, because that was student space.”

This past summer, 232 seats were added to the McLennan-Redpath library complex as a measure to address the growing need for student space. Similar changes are being undertaken in the Life Sciences Library and the Education Library, whose collections were merged with other branches earlier this year, and which now serve as study space.

“Libraries in general [are] moving away from physical books to online collections; and looking at open study spaces with internet collections and plugs rather than stacks,” Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Vice-President University Affairs Joey Shea said. “The more direct thing that you can point to with this issue is obviously the budget cuts.”

The provincial government’s $38.2 million cuts to McGill’s operating budget last December led to a $1.8 million reduction to the library budget.

France Bouthillier, director of the School of Information Studies, said libraries worldwide are undergoing a shift in role, and budget cuts have merely sped up this inevitable process at McGill.

“Financial constraints […] accelerate the need for change,” Bouthillier said. “Libraries have been changing constantly. It’s just a shock for people […] to realize how drastic changes can be, but when you look at the evolution of libraries over at least the last 15 years, there’s been constant change.”

McGill libraries are not alone in facing changes. In Baltimore, Maryland, the Welch Medical Library at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) was recently redesigned to convert its library space from an access point for books to an open study space for the students and faculty that it serves.

Sheridan Dean of University Libraries and Museums at JHU, Winston Tabb,  said the decision went against other suggestions to simply close the library.

“We spent most of 2012 in a large group thinking of the future of the library, including a lot of students and faculty,” Tabb said. “That’s when we discovered how many people really wanted to be able to use the library, but […] not for coming and consulting books.”

According to an ARL study of the past two decades on growing digitization, the number of library users has increased by 33 per cent while initial circulation of physical materials—including books and DVDs—has decreased by 37 per cent.

As a result of similar patterns of use at McGill, the library has developed a policy for removing books from shelves. All science books that have not been circulated for 10 years, and medical books that have not been circulated for five have been moved to storage in the Currie Gymnasium.

Cook stressed that the library’s current use of the gymnasium is only temporary until they develop a long-term plan.

“There’s been a recognition for at least the past 20 years that there are real issues with library spaces,” Cook said. “It’s just that right now, a concatenation of events—less money for people, the fact that we have almost doubled our holdings because of digital books [and] digital resources within the past five years […] and the social learning needs of a different generation of students—have all come together.”

 

The unforeseeable future

In the upcoming months, the McGill Library will conduct a feasibility study about possible changes to the current system. The study aims to address the changing needs of students as well as the space constraints and budgetary concerns the libraries currently face.

Coordinated and managed by Associate Vice-Principal (University Services) Robert Couvrette, the study will consider the options for adaptation that McGill’s library system has.

According to Diane Koen, McGill Library’s Senior Director of Planning and Resources, the study will not consider fine details of the future of the library system; rather, it will examine big-picture options.

“It’s high-level; it doesn’t get right into the weeds of ‘it will look like this,’” Koen said. “We’re [considering a] scope of ideas and potential prices.”

One such idea pertains to a high-density storage system that would be able to consolidate McGill’s library collections in a manner that will ensure that it remains inexpensive yet accessible. According to a 2010 study done by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), book storage on an open shelf costs $4.26 USD per year, while high-density storage would decrease the cost to $0.86, due to factors such as building maintenance and operational costs.

“Taking this economic reality into account, academic libraries around the world are merging print collections capitalizing upon the capabilities and conveniences afforded us by automation, the internet, and [the] proliferation of electronic content,” Koen said.

An example of such storage can be found at the James B. Hunt Jr. Library of North Carolina State University (NCSU), which opened in January 2013 and spans over 221,000 square feet. The library features a $4.2 million robotic book retrieval system, bookBot, which automatically locates, retrieves, and delivers requested material from its high density shelving system within five minutes.

“When we learned about automated storage and retrieval systems that could condense two million of our volumes into one-ninth the space, […] that was an obvious answer to us—to keep our collections on site, not have to send them off-campus for storage, but also to be able to maximize the amount of floor space we could use for study space and collaborative areas,” Carolyn Argentati, Deputy Director of Libraries Administration at NCSU, said.

After an analysis of needs and constraints for projects such as these, McGill’s feasibility study will undergo a process called ‘going-to-tender,’ which refers to contacting architects for suggestions and pricing.

Following the completion of the study in summer 2014, a proposal for the future of the library system will be placed in a queue alongside many other proposals from other departments—all of which have undergone feasibility studies, as well. The proposal will require the approval of senior administration plus adequate funding, which will include money raised by the library and university through grants, loans, gifts, among other resources. Wilson emphasized the important role that libraries play within the university system.

“The future of the library predicts the future of the university,” Wilson said. “Libraries have gone through many different technological changes, and done so very successfully. The first part of the university to adapt to the web was the library [and] the first part of the university to use automation back in the 1960s was the library. So we’re always out there on the edge and a good place to pilot different kinds technology.”

Virr said that although the future of the library remains unclear, flexibility and adaptability are important considerations.

“I do not know what the library in 2030 is going to look like, except that it’s not going to look like it does today,” Virr said. “Maybe by 2030, students will not want group study spaces at all; who knows? But one can only extrapolate and [try] to create spaces that are adaptable.”

On Nov. 18, McGill’s Board of Governors (BoG) met with students to address student concerns including budgetary issues, investment ethics, and transparency.

Co-hosted by Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) President Katie Larson, Post-Graduate Students’ Society of McGill University (PGSS) Secretary-General Jonathan Mooney, and BoG Chair Stuart Cobbett, the meeting was modeled after a similar event hosted last year.

“It went really well last year, and we [were] hoping for more dialogue this time to get a sense of the scope of the work the BoG does,” Larson said.

Comprised of 25 voting members, the BoG makes final decisions with respect to the maintenance and administration of the university. The BoG makes many of its decisions in confidential sessions, which has led some students to question the transparency and accountability of the body.

“How does the BoG consider the student experience in their decision making?” Mooney asked. “They’re this ‘otherworldly organization,’ and there’s no community interaction.”

Cobbett said the BoG is addressing transparency, but the issue is complex.

“In the past, there were fewer items in the open than perhaps could have been, so we are putting more and more in the open,” Cobbett said. “We are trying to be more transparent, but there are some things that by their very nature we cannot be transparent about. The university’s budget, for instance, we debate in closed session every year.”

Cobbett also said it is important to understand the difference between the BoG’s role and that of the administration.

“We are a governance body,” Cobbett said. “We give advice on strategic priorities, but it is very important to remember that the university is run by the principal and administration.”

Other questions focused on the BoG’s commitment to environmental concerns. Some students asked board members to explain their policies on sustainability issues ranging from efficient heating to ethical investments.

“McGill has a really strong reputation as an innovative leader,” said a student who could not be identified. “What kind of ways can we use that power we have now to address climate change, especially on this question of fossil fuel divestment?”

Cobbett responded that divestment was a complicated issue that has  been addressed by the BoG before. Given the university’s current budgeting constraints, Cobbett stressed that it is important for the investment committee to remain concerned with generating revenue, as opposed to divesting from the fossil fuel industry.

“Ethical investments often […] underperform in the market as a whole,” Cobbett said. “It’s tough enough to make money, and for our investment managers to get a decent return on our endowment, without telling them what they can and can’t invest in. I’m not saying we haven’t done it, or that we won’t do it in the future, but it’s something that we have to consider very carefully.”

Other students questioned the effect of the university’s recent budget cuts on staff and professors, class sizes, and the availability of academic resources. Students voiced concerns about the feeling of anonymity at a large university like McGill.

“Is the number of undergraduate and graduate students going to continue increasing if we’re changing the ratio of students to teachers?” one graduate student asked.

“There is absolutely no intent to increase our revenues by dramatically increasing the size of our student body,” Cobbett responded.

Cobbett said he is optimistic about McGill’s financial situation and confident that the situation will improve within the next five years.

“It’s a tough time at McGill, but I don’t want anyone to think we’re teetering on the brink,” Cobbett said. “We have a fabulously strong institution with wonderful people.”

Organizers of the event said they were pleased with the participation of the McGill community.

“Very few universities do this sort of thing,” Mooney said. “It shows that the governors want to be engaged–it’s fantastic.”

Students typically understand education at McGill at two levels—graduate and undergraduate studies. However, not every faculty at McGill is as clear-cut as this system appears; in the Faculties of Law and Medicine, students are considered undergraduates even though most applicants have already completed an undergraduate degree.

Students in law and medicine are considered undergraduates across Canada and in much of the world, although students can also receive a graduate degree in either faculty by completing an additional degree.

Being an undergraduate in these faculties does not alter the daily life of students, according to executive President of the Medical Students’ Society (MSS) Carl White Ulysse.

“We are still treated a little differently from most undergraduates,” Ulysse said. “For example, we only pay 72 per cent of the SSMU fee as per article 1.2 of their constitution, and we have access to the Thomson House like ‘real’ graduate students. In the end, we will get the same degree.”

Marc Roy, vice-president academic of the Law Students’ Association (LSA), said the system of undergraduate classification can create discrepancies between the education levels of entering students, since Quebec students can apply directly from CEGEP.

“A significant part of the class each year is admitted from [CEGEP] applicants,” Roy said. “They go through a very similar application process to students with previous university study, but CEGEP applicants are at the same stage in their education as most students from Quebec entering other undergraduate degree programs.”

CEGEPs offer two-year programs between high school and university from which students can apply for admissions directly to the McGill School of Law and with reduced credit requirements for the School of Medicine.

However, undergraduate status can cause problems for some students in these faculties, especially those looking to work in positions similar to Teaching Assistants (TAs). Undergraduate students are not included in the definition of a TA set by the collective agreement between McGill and the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM).

“AGSEM was accredited in 1993 to represent graduate TAs, and our current TA Collective Agreement defines a TA as a current graduate student,” Justin Irwin, a delegate of AGSEM, said.

Irwin said this can be a harmful situation for both graduate and undergraduate students.

“Graduate students miss out on jobs and the pedagogical experience that goes with them, and undergraduates have no protections on the job,” he said. “The current situation allows McGill to hire non-unionized employees, both undergraduate students and graduate students, to do various teaching support work like grading. This work is often done for low and inconsistent pay without many of the rights unionized workers have, including paid pedagogical training.”

According to Irwin, AGSEM would like to expand to represent undergraduate students, to ensure that the current situation changes.

“We want to see fair rules that balance finding the best candidates with improving the quality of education, and that protect everyone doing teaching support work at McGill,” Irwin said

The Collective Agreement expires in June 2014.

 

 

Professors and students tackled issues of secularism in the public sphere in a Canadian parliamentary-style debate on Nov. 14.

The event was hosted by the McGill Interfaith Students’ Council (MISC), in collaboration with the McGill Debating Union, the Political Bouillon, and the Political Science Students’ Association (PSSA).

Law professor Robert Leckey and student Ezra Cohen, U3 Arts, argued in favour of state-enforced secularism, while political science professor Mark Brawley and student Mwanza Tshimbalanga, U3 Arts, represented opposition to this stance. Participants’ stances in the debate did not necessarily represent their personal views.

Cohen began the debate by arguing the importance of eliminating religious symbols in the public sphere.

“When the state erects a religious symbol [in] a public space, we think that it sends a very clear message: it says that to be Quebecois is to be Catholic,” Cohen said. “If it has some cultural value, lovely—put it in a museum. If it doesn’t, recycle or auction it.”

According to Brawley, however, not all religious symbols are used for the purpose of religious dissemination.

“Lady Gaga wears a cross, [but] not because she is trying to convert people to Christianity,” Brawley said. “People have the freedom to choose to wear certain things.”

Brawley went on to argue that enforcement of laws such as the Parti Québécois’ proposed Bill 60, formerly known as the Charter of Values, which seeks to prevent government employees from wearing obvious religious symbols in the workplace, would be very arbitrary, if not impossible.

“[What the government is] trying to do is to infer things about the intent of the other person,” he said. “When is a headscarf a religious symbol and when is it a scarf? You have to think about the practical impact of this resolution if it was enforced. It’s going to have the exact opposite impact of secularism.”

At the event, Sarah Malik, equity educational advisor at McGill’s Social Equity and Diversity Education Office, criticized the format for not including speakers who will personally feel the impact of the proposed charter.

“It’s really important for people who are directly affected to be given space [and for] the format of these events to give voice to people who are most affected, in particular Muslim women,” Malik said. “I take the hijab very close to my heart, but I do acknowledge that there is a difference between someone like me who […] gets a certain amount of respect because I don’t wear the hijab, versus my hijabi sisters.”

In a panel following the debate, Pearl Eliadis, human rights lawyer and lecturer in the Faculty of Law, took a feminist approach in her criticism of the charter, saying it is particularly unfair to Muslim women.

“Let’s face it—this [charter] is about hijab,” said Eliadis. “[It is] a double-whammy against Muslim women, not only with regards to the fact that they are Muslim, but also with regards to the fact that they are women. Because men wearing beards are not going to be interrogated with regards to the reason they are wearing beards.”

Manjit Singh, the director of Chaplaincy Services at McGill, compared the PQ’s support of the Charter to other examples of oppression in history.

“I keep asking myself ‘what’s the difference between Parti Québécois and the party of Lenin and Stalin?’ They amended things, and people had to endure the suppression,” Singh said. “Is [the] Parti Québécois heading the same way?”

According to Trisha Islam, U3 Arts and an organizer of the event, the debate was a starting point for future mobilization against the Charter of Values.

“There are a lot of resources out there, and we definitely don’t want this event to be the [end] of anything,” Islam said. “We want to trigger other things.”

The latest version of the People, Processes, and Partnerships (PPP) restructuring plan for McGill’s Leacock Building features two additional administrative hubs and more teaching assistant (TA) cubicles.

Faculty of Arts Associate Dean Gillian Lane-Mercier announced the changes to the plan at the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) Council meeting last Wednesday.

The PPP was introduced in Fall 2012 as a project that aims to reorganize the administrative services in the Faculty of Arts in light of staff reductions through the voluntary retirement program and decreased funding from the Quebec government.

“[We are] trying to make these administrative unit hubs robust enough to sustain the early retirement departures and upcoming normal retirements which will continue as we are not allowed to hire,” Lane-Mercier said. “There is a complete hiring freeze, and we do not know how long it will last.”

She went on to say that the PPP initiative will ensure sufficient administrative services for the Faculty of Arts in the face of unpredictable funding from the province.

“We don’t know if the Quebec government will begin to reinvest in Quebec universities,” Lane-Mercier said. “We are not 100 per cent convinced that they will be reinvesting in administrative services, so we wanted to be ready to really remain robust.”

In the initial floor plans announced in April, the third floor of Leacock was the designated space for administrative services. However, Lane-Mercier said current plans will leave the third floor unchanged. Instead, there will be two administrative hubs on different floors—each responsible for its own set of departments.

The first administrative hub will be located on the fourth floor and include the departments of Economics, Political Science, and Philosophy. On the seventh floor, a second hub will be devoted to the departments of History, Sociology, Anthropology, and Jewish Studies.

“[The groupings] took a lot of thinking and statistics,” Lane-Mercier said. “We have huge units, small units, and a couple of more medium-sized units [in Leacock], so we just wanted to make sure we were not overburdening one hub with respect to the other hub. We tried to really get the work load for the administrators to be balanced and also to ensure balanced student services.”

Along with the two administrative hubs, revisions to the restructuring program include the construction of seven more TA cubicles inside Leacock 111 and the repurposing of room 608 into a seminar room.

AUS President Justin Fletcher said the two additions will be beneficial to students.

“The discussion of adding seven TA cubicles in Leacock 111 is really important,” Fletcher said. “It’s a good study space right now, but there’s a lack of TA-student meeting areas. This not only allows for confidentiality, but after hours, it’s a group study area and allows for collaboration in a quiet space.”

Lane-Mercier emphasized that the question of space in Leacock is most pertinent to students.

“[We have a] good opportunity to rethink inner spaces, how to repurpose inner spaces for students,” she said. “I think sharing is a great idea. There’s no reason why undergraduate students couldn’t have a shared student space with two or more departments.”

According to AUS Vice-President Communications Lucy Ava Liu, students can get involved through various sub-groups of the PPP.

“Students can be involved by communicating the AUS their concerns,” Liu said. “The most direct impact for students is the concrete change in departmental administrative locations, and students in certain departments will need to familiarize themselves with new office locations for their departments’ administrative staff.”

Fletcher highlighted the importance of receiving input from students in order to ensure that the restructuring project is beneficial to them.

“Interior spaces in Leacock are going to be decided by departments,” Fletcher said. “It’s important for students involved in their departmental association to speak with their department chair to say […] how we would like space to be utilized. Students need to be active in discussing the allocation of these interior spaces.”

The move is scheduled to begin this summer in order to reduce disruptions. The additional TA cubicles are expected to be completed by next Fall semester.