Closure of science libraries riles researchers

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence France-Presse

Closure of science libraries riles researchers
AFP
By Clement Sabourin
6 hours ago

Montreal (AFP) - Canada's closure of science libraries containing a vast repository of environmental data dating back more than a century has researchers worried that valuable books and reference materials are being lost in the name of cost-cutting.

Unique in its shore access to three oceans (Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific) and with the largest number of freshwater lakes in the world, Canada over the years has amassed a huge cache of books and scientific reports on fisheries, meteorology and wildlife -- on everything from beluga whales to songbirds.

Until recently they had been stored at seven Fisheries and Oceans and 12 Environment Canada libraries and reading rooms across the country.

But the federal government last year ordered most of them closed and fired dozens of librarians as they began consolidating the materials at three locations -- in Sydney, British Columbia and in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia (both Fisheries libraries), as well as at Environment Canada's National Hydrology Research Centre in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where a single librarian with the help of a couple of students have reportedly been tasked with sorting through and cataloguing hundreds of boxes of materials transferred there, to date.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/closure-science-libraries-riles-researchers-023410481.html

[laundry_queen]

1. The Harper government is on an anti-science crusade

Wait, let me clarify...they are on an anti-anything-that-might-stop-us-from-expanding-the-oil-sands-and-polluting-the-country campaign. That includes any research into the ocean that may stop them from ramming their northern gateway pipeline through.

They are determined to sell off all of Canada's resources to the highest bidder.

[jtuck004]

5. That could be China. But at least they are giving some of it back...

http://discovermagazine.com/2011/apr/18-made-in-china-our-toxic-imported-air-pollution#.UsdVlvjyOsR

to all of us.

[blkmusclmachine]

2. ,

,

[Enthusiast]

3. Looks like the "righties" are taking over Canada too.

They will think nothing of altering the results of Canada's elections just like they do in the US. International Fascism.

[Sam1]

4. So this is what the beginning of a dark age looks like.

[ronnie624]

7. But there will likely be no opportunity to recover, this time. n/t

[MisterP]

8. heck, the actual Dark Ages tried their hardest to save what they could

sometimes they'd get "stabbed to death by his pupils with their styluses" but that's always the occupational hazard for academia

[Android3.14]

6. I'll bet a dollar that professional academic librarians have a different viewpoint

It's called weeding.

[alarimer]

9. That's not the case here

They have thrown away some very valuable documents, after a token attempt at digitizing them. They threw away the logbooks to the HMS Challenger expedition, one of the very first marine science expeditions. Thrown in the damn landfill. These are extremely rare volumes.

It was done in haste.

[Android3.14]

10. They didn't interview a single librarian

Not one.
Consolidation of government documents occurs constantly. If there is a collection that few people are using, then it only makes sense to pull it together, task a group to digitizing the material, and move on.
I'd bet a nickel that the libraries offered the material to be stored at other locations and those other libraries said no thank you.
My wife is a librarian, and when they weed books, there is always someone who gets all freaked out.
The truth is that the material is available from another source, and/or no one has used it in years. Yet it takes up shelf space.