To the Editor:

The story I’m about to tell is one that many ISU students can probably relate to. I have a paper due in one of my English classes in about two weeks.

Trying to get started on things, I go to the library to check out a book which I need for a reference. Only then do I discover that the book has been checked out by someone else until MAY 10, 1996!!! There is no way I’m going to get my hands on that book before my paper is due!

My question is, who gets these privileges? I know it’s not the undergraduates. Are they graduate students?

Okay, maybe they need these books for their thesis—but for a whole year? What about the rest of us? Maybe it’s the faculty checking out these books to use in classes they teach.

My opinion is that they should have enough resources of their own to teach their class without retracting from mine. Maybe they should consider purchasing the book if they need it so badly and for so long. After all, they are the ones getting paid to be at this school, not me.

In my five years at Iowa State, this has inevitably happened with EVERY paper I have written, and I’m fed up!

Tiffany Engle

Biology and Horticulture