The plan to ship 100,000 books per year out of Bird Library has been put on hold, said Pam McLaughlin, Bird communications and external relations director.

The library’s plan to start sending books to a storage facility four hours away has come under fire during the past two weeks, leading to a student-led protest at the Nov. 11 University Senate meeting. Under the original plan, students would have to wait 24 to 48 hours to receive a library book from the off-campus facility in Paterson, N.Y.

The reaction from both Syracuse University students and faculty played a large role in suspending the original initiative, McLaughlin said Wednesday.

Savanna Kemp, a junior English and textual studies and women’s and gender studies major, helped lead the student-driven press on SU to cancel the plan.

‘The fact that they put their current plan on hold is extremely pleasing,’ Kemp said. ‘It just didn’t seem like students were consulted or even informed.’

Kemp first learned of the university’s now-stalled plan two weeks ago. ‘A professor told us in class, and that sort of started a rebellion,’ Kemp said Wednesday. ‘I brought it up in a few more classes and found out that no one knew about it, but everyone was concerned about it. It’s been a real whirlwind.’

After Wednesday’s announcement, both Kemp and SU are left wondering what development will be next for Bird.

For SU, Bird librarians and SU’s Dean of Libraries Suzanne Thorin will begin to look at different ways to meet Bird’s space issues, McLaughlin said. In Bird, the shelves are 98 percent full and need to be closer to 75 percent full, she said.

‘We’re looking to see if we can’t come up with an alternative plan,’ McLaughlin said.

No timetable has been set to develop a new initiative. While balancing scarce funding, Bird will consider a number of possibilities:

* Shelves could be added to the third, fourth and fifth floors.

* A complex reorganization of some of the library’s collection could happen, too. This would include clearing out space for new shelves, taking down walls and moving collections around in Bird.

* The Science and Technology Library in Carnegie Hall might be restructured to accommodate some of Bird’s excess books.

‘It’s kind of a domino effect,’ McLaughlin said. ‘There’s a number of dominoes that need to fall here.’

Library officials will try to involve student input as much as possible in upcoming months as they work on the project, McLaughlin said.

On Wednesday, Students set up two tables in Bird’s Learning Commons, said Melissa Welshans, one of the protest’s organizers. They had planned to protest the original plan to ship Bird’s books to Paterson, N.Y., and champion their own plan to create a storage facility in downtown Syracuse.

‘We didn’t ask, we just showed up,’ Welshans said. ‘I just wanted to make sure this didn’t disappear without a fight.’

As the students arrived, library officials met them in the Learning Commons. And McLaughlin came over to the students and told them the news.

‘We put the project on hold, and we want to hear your voices,’ McLaughlin told Welshans and the rest.

And they were heard.

After McLaughlin delivered the news, the protest group passed out flyers with black-ink text printed on bright blues, greens and pinks.

They approached students and faculty as they entered Bird through its glass doors. Pairs and singles strolled past the protestors, some holding up a hand to ward the protestors off.

Others stopped, listened to what the protestors had to say and walked to one of the tables set up by the protestors. Binders filled with white pages lay open on the tables, waiting for convinced passersby to sign a petition.

Welshans, Kemp – the movement’s initial leader – and about 40 other students stayed in Bird until midnight Wednesday. They collected more than a 1,000 signatures for their petitions, which pushed for a different solution to Bird’s woes.

‘We wanted to raise awareness and make it more visible,’ Kemp said at 5 p.m., still in Bird. ‘We’ve actually been in the library all day, and we’ve had an amazing turn out.’

Kemp’s group suggests creating an off-campus facility in downtown Syracuse, to alleviate Bird’s congestion and over-use. SU could run shuttles to the facility or put it on the Connective Corridor.

After all, Syracuse should have enough empty space downtown to accommodate the facility. The downtown could really use it, too, Kemp said.

And having the building in Syracuse would eliminate the issue with the Paterson, N.Y., facility. ‘That idea was so far away,’ Kemp said. ‘If you found a book you needed, then you would have to take a 24-hour study break.’

And as her Wednesday night dwindled in Bird Library, Kemp was left reflecting on the day.

‘The number of people coming over alone is heartening, but after finding out, they come back and say ‘Wow, this is something we need to pay attention to.”

adbrow03@syr.edu

Published on November 24, 2009 at 12:00 pm