Lamont Will Open to Cliffies After Twenty Celibate Years

Lamont Library will be opened to Radcliffe students at the beginning of the spring term, Merle Fainsod, Director of the University Library, announced yesterday.

But the debate on "Girls in Lamont," which has existed in some form since Lamont was built in 1947, is not quite over: the Library Committee has asked in that Lamont be opened to "all Harvard and Radcliffe students on an experimental basis" only until June.

No Restrictions

During next semester's trial period, all the facilities of Lamont will be opened to Radcliffe's 1200 undergraduates, and also to the 650 women graduate students at Harvard.

Radcliffe students have been battling for several years to use Lamont. This year, Radcliffe moved its library from Garden street to the Radcliffe Quad, and the issue came to a head, when students complained that they had no access to reserve books while in Harvard Yard between classes.

In October, four Radcliffe seniors, backed by the Radcliffe Government Association, petitioned the Library Committee to reconsider the negative stand it had taken a year ago. The Committee did this, and on October 28 declared itself unanimously in favor of the "the principle" of women in Lamont.

At that time Committee asked the Lamont staff to make a study during November hour exams, to see if the Library had the faciliies to admit more than 1800 Cliffies and women graduate students. The results of that study, released yesterday, show clearly that it is feasible to open Lamont to women.

The study indicated that there would be "no space problems." The maximum demand for the library's 1000 seats during hours exams was 488, and the average figure was only 322.

There was also "no indication of extraordinary pressures on the reserves" during the November trial period. The staff does not anticipate any significant problem even during reading period and exams, but they plan to increase the reserve stock anyway.

HUC Notified

The Harvard Undergraduate Council, which has consistently opposed Cliffies' use of Lamont -- for reasons "of space and not of principle"--was notified of the decision yesterday. They have been meeting with the Library Committee over the last month, Louis Maisel II '67, HUC Secretary-Treasurer, said last night.

The Library Committee has set up a series of meetings with the HUC for the spring, Maisel said, to evaluate the experiment from the students' point of view.