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Preeti on the Web |
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Providing Food for Thought |
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Perkins Is a Workout |
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Forget about heading to the Wilson Recreation Center. If you want a true workout, the place to go is Perkins Library. My experiences there this semester have been energy-packed workouts of stair-climbing, back bends and neck stretches, all of which have left me in a state of pure exhaustion…and frustration.
My workouts innocently began in February. As a first-year graduate student, I was looking for the book Two Percent Solution. From home, I searched the on-line catalog. I scribbled down the call number and trekked to Perkins. I scrambled up the stairs in the stacks until I reached the right floor. I raced up and down the aisles of bookcases, looking for the right one. Once I found it, I went to exactly where the book should have been. It wasn’t there. I double-checked the call number; I was looking in the right place. I called the circulations desk, and the librarian told me to return to the ground floor. I rushed down four flights of stairs. My armpits were beginning to get moist. The librarian looked up Two Percent Solution on the computer. My Dewey Decimal number was correct, but now, within the 30 minutes since I had first looked up the call number, the book had been christened with a new Library of Congress (LC) number and supposedly been moved to the LC re-shelving area. I went to the re-shelving area. I stretched my neck backwards, looking for the book on the highest shelves. I bent my back forward, looking for the book on the lowest shelves. The book wasn’t there. I raced back to the circulations desk, this time out of breath. The librarian re-checked the computer. It now said that the book was in the New and Newsworthy section. The librarian accompanied me to the New and Newsworthy section. She told me that the books there weren’t arranged in any particular order. Great. We looked together. More neck stretching and back bending. No book. More running back to the circulations desk. My face was now flushed red. The librarian called a manager. The manager took down my email address. Two days later, an email told me to use inter-library loan. Unfortunately, this “workout” was not an isolated incident. It happens about half the time I’m at Perkins. Having talked with other graduate students, some of whom work at Perkins, I know my experience is not unique. Regularly, books that the computer says are on the shelves simply aren’t. Graduate students tell me the best way to get books “at Duke” is to use inter-library loan. It is truly disappointing that Duke students have to use other libraries, including UNC’s, to get the books they need. This sad situation isn’t limited to physically locating books. When searching on-line for books and journal articles, Duke’s library system offers an “e-basket.” Run a search; check a box beside a book or article of interest; and it should be placed in your e-basket. Last month, I spent a long afternoon doing a literature search on the history of elderly women in America. I added books galore to my e-basket. The next day, my e-basket was empty—hours of searching down the drain. Four days later, the books magically reappeared in my e-basket. I have inquired with employees and an administrator at Perkins to figure out what the deal is. Employees told me that Perkins is understaffed and that it has more then 20 departments that don’t communicate well with one another. The administrator told me that the simultaneous introduction of a new, complex integrated library system, the switch from Dewey to LC and library renovations have created a difficult situation. Circulation, acquisitions, database searching and e-basket have all been adversely impacted. This lamentable situation is supposedly short-term. As an undergraduate, I studied at the University of Kentucky, so I can’t help but compare Perkins to UK’s Young Library. At Perkins, the bookshelves are labeled with crumpled paper signs. The stacks are dark and creepy. The study carrels are etched with obscene graffiti. There’s nothing of this sort at UK. There, we have a library in which we take great pride. Duke students, especially graduate students whose focus is scholarly research, deserve a library befitting Duke’s reputation. I sincerely hope that Perkin’s problems are short-term. Meanwhile, though, I urge Perkins to investigate its problems. The quality of students’ work, including mine, is suffering. Plus, if I want a workout, I’d rather get one in front of the plasma televisions at Wilson. |
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Finding books at Perkins Library will give you a day’s worth of exercise, and you still won’t find the books you need. |
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Duke University’s Perkins Library is full of frustrations |
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April 27, 2005 |
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To Contact Preeti: preetiontheweb at yahoo dot com |
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Please note that all text on this webpage is copyrighted ©. Please do not quote or paraphrase without using proper citations. |
