Danni Liu | Student Life

New signs in Whispers ask students to use water bottles for water refills. Whispers no longer provides cups for water.

Many students are confused by the disappearance of the free water cups.

“[It’s] a little bit annoying, because now, when you are in a rush and you forgot your water bottle, you can’t get water,” sophomore David Glaubke said.

Though students may be inconvenienced by the change, most don’t know the reason behind it.

The cups often left water marks on the library’s wooden tables that caused damage such as discoloration, bubbling and uneven texture.

Olin Library administrators asked Whispers employees to stop providing cups with open tops to students.

The library’s policy only allows covered beverages inside the library building. According to Virginia Toliver, associate dean of University libraries, many students were not respecting this rule.

She says that students used to bring uncovered cups into the library.

The library is particularly concerned by the damage because of a recent three-year renovation that concluded in 2004.

In an attempt to remedy the issue, the library contacted the company that manufactures the tables. The manufacturer spent three days retouching the edges of the tables over the summer but said that not much else can be done short of replacing the tables.

According to Toliver, it would cost close to five figures to replace the tables.

She also noted the logistical difficulties involved in replacing the tables, a process that could limit the availability of the library to students for a long period of time.

Toliver expressed dissatisfaction with the ruined tables and said that the library ultimately asked that Whispers stop providing water cups to students in order to preserve the library’s aesthetic and prevent further damage.

“We are worried about the furniture lasting, the library continuing to be an attractive facility,” she said. “This is not a punitive action, and we don’t want the students to feel inhibited or unwelcome in any way.”

Most students did not see this new change as a punishment. In fact, many originally thought that the lack of water cups was a new environmental initiative on campus.

Glaubke thinks the policy might in fact have a positive environmental effect.

“If, as a result, people are more inclined to bring a water bottle, it could certainly have a positive outcome,” Glaubke said.

The disappearance of the water cups has already led to this kind of behavioral change among some students.

Junior Josh Holter recently bought a water bottle solely because Whispers no longer provides cups. The policy has also motivated sophomore Neha Mukunda to use her bottle more often.

Matt Mitgang | Student Life

A piece of paper believed to have been written in Greek by Thomas Jefferson was recovered from inside of a copy of Plutarch’s “Lives.” The copy of “Lives” is also believed to have been owned by Jefferson, as indicated by the addition of a “T” before the books’ signature. On pages with a “T” in the signature, Jefferson would add the letter “I” since the I and J are believed to be alternative forms of the same latter in the Latin alphabet.

The discovery, consisting of 28 titles in 74 volumes, was made by Monticello scholars and announced Monday by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and the University.

These books will be available in the Department of Special Collections in Olin Library. Students are welcome to come in to look at, or even pick up, the books.

“It’s a great opportunity for students and faculty here to come in and look at these books,” said Anne Posega, the head of Special Collections. “It will certainly pull in scholars from around the world who are interested in Jefferson.”

The books have resided in the library for 131 years and were tracked down by two Monticello scholars who were tracing the posthumous whereabouts of Jefferson’s book collection.

After Jefferson died, his family sold many of his possessions to pay for debts, but his granddaughter, Ellen Wayles Coolidge, asked to keep the books that eventually became part of the Washington University collection.

Coolidge’s son-in-law, Edmund Dwight, donated the books to the University in 1880, several years after her death.

“We don’t really know his connection [to the University]” Posega said. “The scholars are still trying to pin [it] down.”

Dwight was from Boston, and the scholars suspect that he had connections to William Greenleaf Eliot, a co-founder of the University. Both Dwight and Eliot graduated from Harvard University.

According history professor David Konig, who studies Jefferson’s legal works, the donation shows a commitment to education.

“What it shows is that his commitment to education was so strong that even his granddaughter and great-granddaughter were aware of it, and that they made sure they kept following this Jeffersonian legacy of support for education and gave this huge collection of books to a university rather than selling them,” Konig said.

The books in Olin are mostly classics, including ones written by Plato and Plutarch as well as some about history and architecture. They are written in English, French, Italian, Greek and Latin.

“These books were meant to be used in a college,” Konig said.

Jefferson marked each of his books with a small letter at the bottom of a few pages. When the books were printed, the publisher would put a letter at the bottom of a group of pages to indicate what order the group should be bound in. The letters used were “T” and “I.”

Jefferson would write his own T’s before the printed I’s and I’s after the printed T’s. He used I’s instead of J’s because that was the Latin form of the letter. He was effectively marking the books with his initials.

A small piece of paper was found in Jefferson’s copy of Plutarch’s “Lives” with notes that, scholars say, were written in Greek by Jefferson.

The Library of Congress and the University of Virginia are the only libraries with a larger portion of Jefferson’s collection.

Scholars are excited about the discovery, if only because it will allow them to learn more about Jefferson’s life and work.

“I certainly think it’s a big deal,” said Nick Miller, a graduate student in the English department. “Jefferson’s at the heart of conversations we have about politics, race and slavery. We’re getting a better sense of what he’s read and where those ideas came from.”

With additional reporting by Michael Tabb.

Winter is gone and I doubt that many of us have given winter the proper recognition and respect it deserves. Although I know that such a long, cold and dark season meant so much to so many, and that my words are probably inadequate to capture its unique meaning for you, I hope you can appreciate a few general highlights about some of the season’s general virtues.

How the bitterly cold wind that caused you to lose feeling in the tips of your ears and fingers encouraged you to partake in an international exchange of cold weather hats from other cultures such as Peruvian influenced chullos and Russian styled ushankas.

How the cold and damp that prevailed during the season (and caused you to be stuck in the cough-cold-flu cycle for a good two to three months) has drastically strengthened your immune system and provided you with future immunity, at least for a few months before new strains evolve.

How ice and subzero temperatures not only gave you ample justification to wear sweatpants and comfortable, albeit slightly hideous, snow boots for weeks on end; but also, to guzzle delicious calorie-laden hot drinks like mugs of hot chocolate brimming with at least half a dozen snowman-shaped vanilla marshmallows.

But alas, no longer. Winter quietly slipped away during the past weeks, but it has continued to pass on at least one legacy, the spirit of academic excellence and achievement that causes our backs to hunch from overstuffed book bags, wrists to ache from thousands of words typed for papers and eyes to water from hours spent reading scholarly texts into the wee hours of the morning.

I think winter would want us to remember that even though spring is awakening around us, to not be fooled by the warm sunshine, bright blue sky and crisp green grass that beckons us to frolic outside. Spring may give us just as many reasons to stay inside and work as winter did. Yet I think it would want us to be comforted (at least a little) by the fact that our occasional 2 a.m. trudge from Olin Library can now be accompanied by the cheerful chatter of songbirds.

Kemi is a freshman in Arts & Sciences. She can be reached via e-mail at imekkemi@gmail.com.

The biology and math libraries, previously on the second floor of Rebstock Hall and the lower level of Cupples I, respectively, were targeted because their diminishing traffic did not justify their continued existence, Dean of Libraries Shirley Baker said. Their collections are now housed in Olin Library’s B Level.

Currently, study spaces in those two locations remain open to students, and the biology and math departments have yet to determine the future use of the space.

Slashing the salaries of two employees provided the bulk of the savings. Both of the assistant librarians whose positions were eliminated were re-hired in open positions at the Olin and the chemistry libraries.

Other savings came from eliminating some journal subscriptions, copy machines and other equipment. While computers are still available in the former biology library, printing is not.
The administration has not confirmed any plans to close more satellite libraries, though it remains a possibility if the economy stays poor, said Ruth Lewis, biology and math librarian, who now has an office in Olin.

“What scares me is if we have to cut another 12 percent next year,” Lewis said. “That’s going to be really hard.”

According to Baker, the decision depends primarily on how departmental libraries are used. The biology

The biology library, above, and the math library closed last summer due to budget cuts and decreasing foot traffic. (Matt Mitgang | Student Life)

library was already losing foot traffic dramatically because access to biology journals, previously one of the most important functions of the biology library, is now available online.

The art and architecture library, on the other hand, is unlikely to ever close since print materials are critical for those disciplines.

The chemistry library houses journals that are only available in print, often due to high prices, said Chris Goodman, formerly the assistant math librarian and now the chemistry and engineering assistant librarian.

“Our strategic plan includes downsizing and perhaps even consolidating some libraries because the materials are going electronic and the use is happening elsewhere,” Baker said. “Biology especially had become incredibly quiet.”

The University is not alone in its decision to close satellite libraries. Schools like Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology are also getting rid of departmental libraries. Others, however, are slower to move, like Harvard, which has 96 libraries.

The widespread use of digital materials is changing the structure of libraries dramatically, pushing them to consolidate and weed out their print materials when online copies become available.
Olin has adapted by creating a digital library team to push the process along. Its staff has also started to use Google Books to give students access to books they cannot find otherwise. In addition, a new catalog will be unveiled this week with more sophisticated search tools, tag clouds and other digitally focused features.

“When we talk about where the libraries will be as we finish our Plan for Excellence, it will probably be fewer physical libraries” Baker said. “The digital collections will grow dramatically; we may even remove some print from the main campus.”

Lewis expressed disappointment with the recent decisions.
“I’ve had a few complaints. People just aren’t generally happy about the decision,” Lewis said. “A few faculty are going to miss 24/7 access—being able to get a journal at 7 a.m. on a Sunday.”
The biology department has been using electronic resources for years, so it happily adapted to the change, Baker said.

“Except for the loss of a piece of [their] identity,” she added. “It’s your departmental library.”

The change may be harsher for the math department, where members still like to browse through books. Graduate students will suffer the most, according to Goodman.
“There’s the occasional undergraduate, but they never really spent much time there,” Goodman said.

All the same resources, however, are still available, even if they are in different formats or locations. Also, the change in structure was designed to match the way faculty and students previously used the departmental library.

“There are some things that will come out of it—undergrads can now get biology books until 2 in the morning now,” Lewis said.