NDSU seeking to improve library

FARGO (AP) — North Dakota State University student leaders are considering higher fees to upgrade their library, which officials say is deteriorating.

NDSU ranks last compared with similar universities in the number of students visiting the library and the number of books students check out, Mark England, director of information services, told students this week.

“I don’t think it’s because our students are illiterate,” England said. “I think it’s because we have a poor library and people don’t find it useful to go there.”

NDSU’s library has not kept up with the university’s growing enrollment and increased research emphasis, said Jim Council, the NDSU dean of libraries. Journal subscriptions become more expensive every year, he sad.

“What’s happened for years is we have cannibalized the rest of our materials budget in order to maintain our journals and databases,” Council said.

Officials have been discussing a new library, but it would cost an estimated $68 million if construction began in 2009.

“Realistically, we probably couldn’t do something that grand,” Council said.

The current library was built in the 1950s, and expanded in the 1970s, he said.

NDSU students began paying a library fee of 83 cents a credit in 2004. It works out to about $10 a semester for a full-time student, which generates $210,000 a year for the library.

Josh Reimnitz, the student body president, believes most students would agree to a small fee increase, such as doubling it to $20 a semester. It could be put to a student vote in April.

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