This is a brief introduction to the library committee and its concerns for this year 1999-2000. It is my own view and not an official statement of the committee, although I believe the committee would agree with it if we had the time to table it and discuss it.
Links are at the bottom of the page.
Since UTD began as an undergraduate and graduate institution, the library has faced two continuing and serious problems. First, state funding is hopelessly inadequate to maintain even a moderately good university library. To qualify, apart from paying fees, a library collection has to meet certain criteria for size and quality of holdings. We are not close, yet if we had to rely purely on formula funding, we would not be able maintain the journal collection we now have, even if we chose not to buy a single monograph. The consequence is that our successive administrations have had to go hat in hand to the legislature and system administration each year asking for funds over the state formula allocations.