Editorial
.— • • ■ ■.-.===
| Daily
[Nebraskan
Editorial Board
University of NebraskaLincoln
I
Eric Pfanner, Editor, 472 1766
Victoria Ayotte, Managing Editor
Darcie Wiegert, Associate News Editor
Diane Brayton, Associate News Editor
Jana Pedersen, Wire Editor
Emily Rosenbaum, Copy Desk Chief
Lisa Donovan, Editorial Page Editor
Libraries in Catch-22
Storage, studying struggle for space
Academic Senate President James McShane accurately
characterized the tight spot University of Nebraska
Lincoln libraries have fallen into.
After a meeting of the NU Board of Regents, he described
| the libraries’ space shortage as a “Catch-22.”
“At the same time we increase storage space, we diminish
^ study space,” he said.
Room for both is running out. The problem is that material
i just keeps being added — 50,000 volumes a year, according to
Kent Hendrickson, dean of university libraries.
Add those volumes to the 1.5 million the libraries already
| have filed at Love Library, and you have a lot of books.
I Hendrickson said UNL’s storage capacity in 10 research
| libraries is at 80 percent.
In five years, he said, the libraries will be close to 90 percent
| full, meaning that they will be filled to capacity for all practical
purposes.
/vs some smaller norancs mi iasier man omers, maicnais
will have to be moved to larger libraries, such as Love and
T C.Y. Thompson on East Campus, Hendrickson said.
That’s an impractical arrangement for all parties. It costs
library officials time and money to move volumes from one
| location to another. And students will be the big losers if
materials for one field of research arc located in several librar
| ics. It would force them to traipse from one location to the next
in search of related information, and perhaps, even to miss
material vital to their research.
I As storage space continues to increase, it will put more and
more of a pinch on study space, which already is hard to come
by at UNL libraries.
Hendrickson said the libraries can seal only about b percent
of the total student population. That falls way short of the 20
percent he said is the national standard. At UNL, students have
a variety of other study locations to choose from, including the
unions, restaurants and living units. Still, there’s nothing like
studying near the best source of reference materials — the
libraries. But that space is being filled up by the continuing
supply of volumes.
1 storage ana siuay space are equally necessary, Something
has to give.
A request for expansion of Love Library that would allow' it
to meet UNL’s needs for the next 10 to 20 years has been
submitted to the NU Board of Regents. Hendrickson said the
I $19 million plan calls for a two-floor expansion of Love North,
| renovation of Love South and the addition of one floor and a
} partial filling in of the link in between.
But the proposal didn’t make it onto the regents’ priority list
I for capital construction this year.
Instead of the library request on the list of 13 priority recom
mendations to the Nebraska Legislature are construction, reno
vation, remodeling and equipment requests for all four
I branches of the University of Nebraska system. The price tag
i for those projects adds up to more than $60 million.
; Any project that improves the university’s ability to give its
| students a quality education is important. But the dual role of
| libraries as reservoirs of information and as places to study that
I knowledge ought to ensure that they hang onto some priority
status.
Especially when space is running out fast.
— Krk Planner
for the Daily Nebraskan
Onipmn
—JK^Ikeader |
Simplistic answers appeal
to those with limited minds
There’s one thing you can be sure
of besides death and taxes. It is that
when complicated issues need solu
tions, some fool will come up with a
simplistic solution, and lots of others
who don’t want to have to think, who
want everything to be easy and will
jump on it and support it.
So we have the 2 percent solution.
And we have T.H.R.O. Inc. We don’t
want to exert ourselves, and we don’t
seem to have any faith in the system
we’ve created, so let’s just blow it up
and start over. It has a certain appeal
to limited minds. But it’s strange to
see such a no-mind approach defended
in a Daily Nebraskan column (DN
Oct. 12), where normally we place j
value on a reasoned consideration ol
problems and the thoughtful search
for rational and humane solutions.
We need to reject ihe simple-minded
blathcrings of tired and angry old
men as the nonsense they are and gel
on with the business of genuine re
form tempered with careful concern
for the real issues and the people or
whom they have an impact. To dc
otherwise is to voyage on a ship ol
fools.
Rosemary Bergstrom
nursing
No one to blame for suicides
Looking for scapegoats doesn’t find solutions to problems
Five years ago today, I lost a
very good friend. Actually, he
lost himself.
Brad was someone who took pride
in helping others. He always smiled
at people he talked to, regardless of
his mood, and had a kind word for
anyone who needed it. He cared about
others, sometimes more than himself.
He earned Colorado All-State
honors as a quarterback on his high
school football team during his junior
and senior years, keeping a 3.5 grade
point average all the while.
Brad would go out of his way to
help people. He once went 15 miles
out of his way to take a stranded man
whose car had broken down to the
nearest gas station. He was involved
in community and church projects
designed to benefit his hometown.
He had a firm grasp on his future
— what he wanted and how he would
gci u.
Put simply, Brad would give some
one his last dime if they needed it
more than he did. He always paid
close attention to little details —
“They’re the ones that count the most,”
he would say.
But there were a few little details
in his own life that he was either too
proud or too stupid to take care of.
They were details he didn’t even bother
lodiscuss with his family and friends.
Five years ago today, Brad com
mitted suicide.
He neither left a note nor an expla
nation. All he left was heartbreak,
anger and disenchantment, and a trail
of unfulfilled dreams that paved a
dead-end road of an unfinished life.
Brad was the first of four friends I
would lose to suicide within the next
year. Remarkably, none of the four
knew each other. Looking back, they
didn’t know much at all. If they did,
they didn’t apply it.
What is surprising, though, is that
it just keeps happening, with seem
ingly no cure for the factors that cause
ihc problem. Organizations and sup
port groups that deal with suicide
aren’t usually well-known, and fund
ing for such groups is almost non
existent.
And everyone associated with
suicide is always looking for some
one else to blame.
Less than two months ago, the
nrmsn ncavy mciai oana juaas rricst
was on trial for allegedly causing two
Sparks, Ncv., youths to commit sui
cide, because of its song lyrics.
The jury’s verdict was “not guilty,"
citing the First Amendment as valid
protection for song lyrics.
Now, in Macon, Ga., singer Oz/.y
Osbourne is facing similar charges
for the suicide shootings of two teens
who allegedly killed themselves after
hearing subliminal messages on his
song “Suicide Solution.”
Osbourne is no stranger to such
accusations. In 1986, a 19-year-old
California man committed suicide after
drinking heavily and listening to
Osbourne’s music. Two years later,
the court dismissed the suit, also rul
ing that the music was protected by
the First Amendment.
There is little doubt that Osbourne
again should be absolved of the chaises.
There also is little doubt that these
allegations will surface again and again,
whenever someone commits suicide
and there is a stereo in the room.
Suicide is a fact of life, just like
alcoholism and drug abuse, poverty,
bigotry and all the other problems
that infest the planet. The big differ
ence, though, is that suicide is the one
thing few people take the time to try
lo understand or solve.
If they did, they’d realize that there
is no clear-cut explanation.
Prevention lips and lists of telltale
sigas of depression follow almost every
newspaper story about someone kill
ing themselves. They’re as useless as
a one-legged bipod.
Trying to understand why some
one would pay the ultimate price
because of lifers pressures will only
render you helplessly overwhelmed
with confusion. If there was a single
explanation, each ease would be dealt
w'ith in the same way, and “suicide’’
would become an obsolete word.
unc uin tuiouiuy pester menus
who arc angry or depressed. If any
thing, such critical conversation would
only add to the problem.
Often, things arc gone before you
have time to realize how important
they really were. Most of those things
will never come back. Time is one of
them.
When those things are gone before
we want them to be, we feel cheated,
and look for a scapegoat — such as
controversial song lyrics.
Face the sad fact: If those people
commuted suicide because of a song,
they were well on their way to self
destruction. It would have happened
sooner or later.
Suicide is an individual choice,
albeit a stupid one. But even more
stupid thmgscan follow — like blam
ing song lyrics for a bad, irreversible
choice.
Contrary to desirable opinion,
tomorrow will not always come. For
some people, that holds true sooner
than later. But dwelling on it eventu
ally kills everyone involved.
The only difference is in how long
it takes.
Green Is a news-editorial major, and is a I
Daily Nebraskan night news editor, sports
writer and columnist. '
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