The normally empty foyer of the Fisher Library was crowded with people seeking to borrow books at yesterday’s mass book borrow protest.

Yesterday students at the University of Sydney organised a mass borrowing of books to protest against proposals by the University’s Fisher Library to remove 500,000 books from the shelves and retrench 30 staff.  Just two months ago concern was expressed at the removal of a large number of books from the library at University of New South Wales. I wrote about this in a previous post and examined the problems librarians face as the result of a finite amount of space to accommodate an increasing number of books. In this post I will examine more closely the specific circumstances and issues that the borrowers and librarians at Fisher Library are grappling with. Continue reading →