WIDENER

The announcement that Boylston Library will now be kept open on Sundays should over joy concentrators in History, Government or Economics. But of wider interest is the plan to make possible the return of reserved books between midnight and nine o'clock through a slot in a side door of the building. Both these reforms, coming in the prime of the academic year, call to mind once more the disheartening state of affairs in the main library of the University, and suggest to even the blandest observer a number of desirable changes.

The initial mistake of closing Widener at six on weekdays, and all day Sunday, remains as glaring, and as unnecessary, as it ever was when it raised up indignant and sounding protest a year ago. It entails inconvenience and continual hurry for those who cannot do without the reading rooms, and smothers all enthusiasm for doing optional work in them, an enthusiasm which Widener's neo-classic dinginess does not breed very readily in any case. In order to make the use of the Harvard Library a civilized convenience and not a painful duty for the undergraduate, it should be kept open from nine till eleven, every day, just as the House libraries are. In the matter of the overnight privilege for reserved books, the recent change at Boylston should be copied.

The theoretical fitness of these and similar changes is self-evident. Against them the University has always argued reasons of economy, but without much cogency. As a high official said last year, it would be quite possible to retrench elsewhere, if the authorities thought the library situation really serious. Its seriousness has already been proved by the number of desperate and unworkable suggestions for intramural and commuters' privileges in the House libraries. These can be stilled, and normality restored, only by immediate adoption of those suggestions which are in general cry.