Prominently featured among the recommendations in the CAP report was a suggestion that Frost be upgraded or rebuilt, citing a desire to make the library a central hub to Amherst's academic life. Though major changes are likely in store for the library in the long term, as mentioned by the recent CAP report and investigated by the Library Planning Group, the library also has short- term plans to deal with a crunch on library space.
Although some had suggested that the library may stop buying new books because of a lack of space, in reality, the library has a large amount of storage space that will allow the library to continue to buy books beyond the visible capacity in its on-campus facilities.
According to Sherre Harrington, Amherst's head librarian, the College plans this year to "spend about $2.3 million on materials-journals, DVDs, CDs, electronic resources, maps, slides and around 20,000 books."
Harrington recognized that space was "definitely an issue" for the library. "If you keep in mind that a library is considered 'full' when the shelves are at 85 percent of capacity, you'll recognize that Frost and the [Arms Music Library] are nearly, if not completely, full," she said. "[Keefe Science Library] seems a bit better off, but that is mostly because many older science books have already been transferred to the depository and because of the reliance in the sciences on the recent journal literature, which is more likely to be available electronically."
In the short term, the College will deal with this issue by making use of the library's depository, a renovated Strategic Air Command facility in South Hadley. Amherst currently has 10 percent of its printed material stored at this facility, in sections dedicated to the College as well as the Five College's libraries.
As the College continues to purchase more books, more materials will need to be moved to the depositories in order to make room. To this end, the library is also looking for ways to move materials that are the least used to the depository in order to make room for even more new materials. "We know that there are significant numbers of duplicate copies of some books and are studying the desirability and economic efficiency of moving unused copies to the depository," Harrington commented. "We may ask faculty to select additional journal titles that are also available electronically to be moved off-site, in a sort of lesser-of-two- evils strategy."
Additional volumes will also be moved in response to problems on Frost's C Level. "In addition to regular transfers of bound volumes of many print journals that are also available electronically, there are plans to move about 9,000 volumes from C Level to the depository this summer," Harrington said. "Some of the moveable shelving on Level C has failed and, rather than replace the shelving at a cost of $795,000, the College is supporting our decision to take a more economical approach as we await the results of long-term planning for the library."
Harrington emphasized that lasting solutions to storage problems will come over the long term, as the library staff is not totally satisfied with the solution of continuing to move materials into the depository. "I do think off-site storage has a negative effect on perhaps not students' abilities, but certainly their inclinations, to use those materials," she said.
However, in the meantime, the library hopes to make materials at the depository as accessible as possible to students and faculty who need them. "Soon, probably by March 1, the frequency of retrieval and delivery of materials from the depositories will increase from three times per week to daily," she said. "It will be possible to have articles delivered directly to your desktop."
Though future plans for the library will take space concerns into account, the long-term plans for the library involve far more than just increased storage room. The CAP, following advice given by the Library Planning Group, expressed a desire to change the library in order to make it more useful to students and faculty and to increase its use in order to turn it into a center of academic life at the College. The CAP report stated that "The Library Planning Group believes that there is a broad consensus on campus that Frost Library in its current form under-serves the academic community."
The Library Planning Group, formed in June of 2005, was chaired by Harrington and consisted of eight other faculty and staff and two students, Viet Do '06 and Mira Serrill-Robins '06. The group, after examining the library expansions of Amherst's peer institutions, declared that the College would set an example for other liberal arts institutions. "We believe that Amherst College has before it the opportunity to create a library that will set the standard for how liberal arts college libraries work not just today but for years to come," stated the report.
The group made three general suggestions for considerations for the library's future. First, they mentioned the potential uses that faculty have for library resources and facilities and emphasized the importance of expanding on those possibilities. They also discussed the potential importance of the library to the academic and social life of students. They recommended the creation of more welcoming study spaces and offered possible suggestions such as a café. The group also addressed the issue of storage space, in particular emphasizing that books stored at the depository will be unavailable for students who want to find materials by simply browsing through the library.
Storage issues, while a consideration for library staff, are currently being dealt with in the short term, and even more effective plans are in the works to deal with them in the long term. However, the library hopes to improve in many other aspects as well, according to Harrington. "While of course we must deal with storage questions, we don't want to become, even for the short term, in the president's words, a 'book ghetto' that lacks effective, attractive spaces in which to use the library's resources-collections, staff and other facilities-for teaching, learning and, sometimes, recreation," she said.