Our approach to budget reductions at the MIT Libraries

Dear members of the MIT community,

I write to share important information about the ways MIT Libraries will reorganize to take account of budget pressures facing the Institute and changing demands for our services.

Like units across MIT, the Libraries are making changes in order to manage with reduced resources. But guided by our strategic vision — and by clear data on the evolving use of our collections and facilities — our plan will allow us to continue:

• enhancing our digital collections and services;
• expanding our support and expertise for data-intensive and computational research and learning; and
• providing leadership in open scholarship, both at MIT and globally.

At the same time, we will make adjustments in other areas to reflect evolving use of our services. Use of our print materials has declined steadily over the past decade and now represents less than 1 percent of total library collection use, while use of the Libraries’ many digital resources continues to grow. Additionally, foot traffic to all locations except Hayden Library has declined significantly over the past decade.

In keeping with these trends, as well as our strategic priorities, we will make the following changes:

• Starting in June 2026, we will no longer provide staffed service desks at Barker Library and Dewey Library, and access to the stacks in those libraries will be limited to Libraries staff. Items from the Barker and Dewey collections will remain fully accessible by request, with pickup and delivery options available. The Barker Reading Room will remain open as a 24/7 study space for the MIT community, and space in Dewey will be repurposed to meet community needs for study and learning spaces.
• Additionally, we expect that staffing in Rotch Library will be reduced in June 2027, when the School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P) moves to the Met Warehouse. A joint task force composed of MIT Libraries staff, SA+P faculty and staff, and other stakeholders will make recommendations to the Provost’s Office on how Rotch can evolve to meet the changing needs of the community under reduced staffing models. The Aga Khan Documentation Center and the GIS & Data Lab, which are currently located in Rotch Library, will not be impacted by these changes.
• Going forward, critical work to preserve printed materials will be outsourced. The Wunsch Conservation Lab, which offers in-house conservation of print materials, will wind down in June 2026.
• Finally, the Libraries will provide on-demand article access at a fraction of the cost of paywalled journal subscriptions, which we will be cutting back. Print acquisitions will also be further minimized.

Earlier today Libraries leadership met with the teams whose members will be directly affected by these decisions. As these changes won’t take effect for some time, we will engage over the coming months with the individual employees whose positions will be impacted.

I believe these decisions represent the most strategic path to preserving the MIT Libraries for our full community: They are in keeping with our commitment to being a digital-first library and will help ensure that we remain an innovative library system, strategically aligned with MIT, in the years to come. I would like to underscore that the Libraries remain committed to advancing MIT’s core mission by sharing knowledge and fueling research and learning across the Institute.

We are grateful to the faculty, staff, and student members of the Committee on the Library System for their valuable input and support throughout this process. I welcome any questions you may have, and can be reached at dir-lib@mit.edu.

Sincerely,

Chris Bourg
Director of Libraries