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Metcalf Doubts Annex Will Ever Enter Lamont

John Reed Club's Poll Can Not Affect Library's Policy as Ideas Considered Impractical

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

Radcliffe girls will probably never share Lamont Library with Harvard, Keyes D. Metcalf, Director of the University Library, stated yesterday. "It's up to the Radcliffe authorities to request that we allow girls privileges in Lamont, and I doubt if they ever will."

Metcalf was replying to returns of a John Reed Club poll which this week shoed that 81 percent of 350 'Cliffe undergraduates polled want use of Lamont "on an equal basis with Harvard students."

Despite the fact that most Annex students polled complained of difficulties in securing course books in the Radcliffe Library, Metcalf said he thought the 'Cliffe facilities were quite adequate. "Radcliffe authorities have just as much money as Lamont with which to guy books, and they have a smaller student body to serve."

Couldn't Afford Use

"What's more," Metcalf said, "I don't believe that Radcliffe could ever afford to pay us the costs necessary to admit girls to Lamont without completely dismantling the Radcliffe Library. Such a situation would be impossible, anyway," Metcalf added, because Lamont is designed to accommodate "a peak Harvard load and nothing more."

At Radcliffe yesterday, library directors echoed Metcalf's statement that Annex book stacks are adequate. "We're making a concerted effort this year to order even more course books, but it all takes time and the girls must be patient," one official said.

No Limited Privileges

The chief librarian ruled out any of the "limited" privileges which the John Reed Club poll suggested for Annex students.

(1) Radcliffe won't be allowed in Lamont in the morning because, said Metclaf, "we'd get ourselves in all kinds of messes, especially book collections, if we opened the building to the girls at one time and not at another."

(2) Radcliffe won't be admitted to Lamont classrooms because, Metcalf said, "you just can't put girls in one part of the building and not in the rest of it."

(3) Radcliffe won't be able to use the building during vacations because Lamont will not alter its present policy of closing during holidays.

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