To the editor:
This letter is a comment on the article of July 29 in the Deseret News about the closure of the BYU School of Library and Information Sciences scheduled for 1993.It was stated in the article that the library school program was expensive and, therefore, the university was unable to support it any longer. However, are not all of the university's programs expensive?
The library school uses basically computerized instruction. So do all other programs. Science departments, for example, often use very expensive specialized laboratory equipment such as electron microscopes and telescopes. The university also manages to maintain its vast football stadium, which stands empty for some 330 days a year.
It also stated that a third of the library school faculty is retiring within the next three years. According to recent articles in the BYU Daily Universe, three-eighths of the entire BYU faculty will be retiring by 2000 (only nine short years away). In some departments about half of their faculty will be retiring by then.
The university administration is concerned about how these vacancies will be filled since the pool of qualified replacements is diminishing due to often better-paying positions outside the university community.
Also mentioned in the article is that the library school only has a graduate program. The reason for this is that due to the great diversity of library resources, the library world benefits from graduates in a great number of fields.
In this country, we have a warped sense of values. Professional athletes are paid fabulous salaries while professional teachers and librarians are paid near-starvation wages. Even here in Utah and at BYU is it the sports programs that get discontinued when budgets get tight? No. it is almost always the educational or cultural programs that are discontinued.
If a sports facility needs to be expanded, the university can usually find a way to fund such expansion even if by soliciting money from wealthy patrons (for whom sports arenas are named as a token of appreciation).
Yet, the university cannot find a way to maintain a school of library science, a debate team, an American Indian program or a paleontological museum.
The closure of the BYU library school not only creates possible future shortages of professional librarians but contradicts BYU's motto, "The glory of God is intelligence."
Grant W. Turnblom
Orem