Committee Scrutinizes Access to Course Books

Members of the Committee on Undergraduate Education scrutinized students’ access to course books—with some criticizing what they consider to be inconsistent policies among course heads—at their meeting last Wednesday.

Employees work in the Lamont Library reserves. By Savannah I. Whaley

While instructors may put course books on hold for in-library use by students, they are currently not required to do so. Undergraduate Council representative for Mather House Eduardo A. Gonzalez ’18, who is also a member of the UC’s Education Committee, said this lack of a consistent policy can pose problems for students.

“It seems that it largely comes down to professor preference at this point,” Gonzalez said of the choice of whether or not to provide books on reserve.

Particularly for courses with extensive reading lists, course reserves can be useful for students on financial aid, Gonzalez said, allowing them to spend less money on required books and sparing them the stress of looking for readings that are already checked out of the library.

Harvard’s financial aid package includes a book stipend under its “personal expenses” budget. Sometimes those funds aren’t adequate, nor are the books available at local bookstores, Gonzalez said.

“There’s always the possibility that the Coop will sell out of books, which happened to me several times this semester for social studies textbooks,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez listed his own social studies course, Social Studies 10b: “Introduction to Social Studies,” as a course with many required readings but no reserved books. The course’s instructor, James T. Kloppenberg, said he was new to teaching the course, but that his predecessors’ experiences had suggested there was not much demand for reserves.

“First, almost all of these texts are classics that are readily available, in multiple copies, in the Harvard library system,” Kloppenberg wrote in an email. “Second, students who want to purchase them can buy or rent them at the Coop or buy them inexpensively on the used book market. Third, most of these texts are now available electronically, either on the course i-site or through the Harvard library system.”

Daniel E. Lieberman, who chairs the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology and is a member of the CUE, said low demand for course reserves is not an adequate reason to withhold them.

“I just think we should bend over backwards to make sure that the books that we offer should be on reserve,” Lieberman said. “It’s a matter of principle.”

Gonzalez and UC Education Committee chair Scott Ely ’18, who is also a CUE member, said the UC would continue to work with the CUE and with library administrators to look for ways to increase student access to course books.

“Our next steps include meeting with people who are involved with the library committee so they’re aware of our position and so we can hear more from them,” Ely said.

Associate University Librarian Susan M. Fliss wrote in an email that the library “puts all faculty requests on reserve.”

–Staff writer Jonathan G. Adler can be reached at jonathan.adler@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanGAdler.