I hope it doesn't come to that. Particularly in a rural state notorious for its limited internet access. (Typing this from a house in the hills, where we only got actually working internet service a couple years ago. Before that, we relied on, y'know, libraries.)

Exactly so. Some of the people I've spoken to hate everything that's happening but are tied to VSU through financial aid or residency-based scholarships, or just can't afford the extra costs of attending school out of state.

Thank you. I wonder what the state's contribution to VSU schools was in comparison?

I agree, they say they have to consider how they attract future students (I mean, so much for us current students, but whatever). I won't pretend I know how money moves around at the state levels, but surely prioritizing funding public universities, and making improvements to draw in both local and out-of-state students, not to mention international, should be an obvious economical move? Whereas right now, current students are transferring, future students are looking elsewhere, and communities who benefit from college resources and income are facing serious economic consequences.

You raise an important point and don't sound rude at all.

Tl;Dr: We know we're broke, we're trying to find alternatives to cutting costs, but the administration refuses to cooperate and says the decision is final.

We are very aware of the financial troubles that lead to this. We also know that the current proposal will not only be far more expensive to institute, but cause a significant drop in enrollment. Many students are already transferring. We know the university needs to cut costs, but the administration's current approach is short-sighted and ill-conceived. We are trying to find alternatives, and to that end have requested the administration be transparent with the data they're basing the decision on. They have thus far refused. The only thing they're willing to share is that VSU has a 25 million dollar deficit, and there is an expectation that the colleges save 5 million a year in costs for five years. But they won't show us the exact numbers indicating the amount of money saved by repurposing the libraries and reducing library staff to a skeleton crew, or how much the exact cost of a digital transition will be compared to maintaining the current physical libraries.

Can you tell me where you got that statistic? We're trying to amass as much relevant data as we can.

We'll look into that, thanks! And yes, it's been pointed out to admins multiple times that maintaining a digital catalogue will be a much more expensive venture than maintaining our physical book collection. They only say it's the "way of the future".

No, it's a good point. Many students are transferring, but just as many don't have that option, and their educational success is going to be severely impacted by this move. It's for those students we're fighting this.