Footnotes to the excellent op-ed piece by Ralph Townsend (BDN, Oct. 3). An institution granting MAs and Ph.D.s is supposed to have 7,000 periodicals in its collection. When UMaine’s library had 5,400 periodicals it was well below the acceptable level. The current cuts will bring the number down to 3,400. That’s the level for community colleges.

Administrators who decided to slash the Fogler Library’s budget must have gone to the same cost-cutting seminar in which hospital administrators were told to eliminate operating rooms and airport managers advised to save money by getting rid of control towers.

A university that plans to spend $25 million on a fitness center but can’t afford an adequate library has the wrong priorities.

Margaret Cruikshank

Lecturer

University of Maine

Orono