TIVOLI: info on planned closure Elam Fine Arts Library, please spread

[Tivoli]

Greetings All

Some of you will already know of the University of Auckland's
plan to close the following specialist libraries, five in all, including
The Elam School of Fine Arts Library, the Maori and Pacific

Archive, the Music Library and the Architecture Library, in the
name of 'centralisation' and cost-cutting. 45 librarian jobs could
be lost.

As an ex University of Auckland Senior Lecturer in Art History and
someone who along with Art History students and Elam School of
Fine Arts students and many of the artists and arts professionals in
New Zealand was a regular user of Elam's treasure-house of learning
and premier research centre vital to all involved in the visual arts, I
am appalled to hear that the University administration plans to close
this and the other facilities.

COME TO THE RALLY
OPPOSING THESE CLOSURES 

Monday APRIL 30 AT MIDDAY
at the University's main library, Alfred St
Support the students' call for this proposal to be canned

my letter to Herald (unsurprisingly) unpublished -

The University of Auckland's plan to close the Elam School of Fine Arts Library is brilliant.
Why not go one step further than the placement of some in the main library and the storage
of others?
Burn the books! Burning them would be simpler, as it is alleged has been the happy fate of
some tomes from the Engineering School incinerated in recent time. No need to continue
paying old-fashioned librarians to guide mobile - armed students through the vast, unwieldy
history of global art.

That cumbersome collection of unique artist's books and rare manuscript facsimiles would
flare up well at Fahrenheit 451. Freed up library space would generate more studio space,
thus more fees, nicely bumping up income for the business that is the University of Auckland.

World Book Day was April 23 - a pity New Zealand and our 'world-class' university wasn't
quicker off the mark in cleverly commemorating the day. It might have been a world first for
what some misguided souls rate one of the Southern Hemisphere's richest arts books
resources and welcoming learning environments in the heart of the country's premier art school.

As for the bleeding-hearts' suggestion that some of the unwanted books could be donated to
the underground libraries being built in war-ravaged Syria, or to the library in under seige
low-tech Gaza asking for donations, forget it. Burn the books!

Elizabeth Eastmond

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