The University of Central Florida abruptly shut down two libraries and a technology lending center early Thursday, students and employees said, leaving some people without jobs and students without a place to borrow laptops, camera and other equipment.
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The university shuttered the library on its downtown Orlando campus, a curriculum materials center on its main east Orange County campus and its “LibTech” desk on both campuses, they said.
A UCF spokesperson declined to provide details about the shutdowns or to say how many employees had lost jobs.
The cuts to libraries “followed a comprehensive review” to “ensure limited resources are focused on the services that provide the greatest impact,” said Courtney Gilmartin, UCF’s chief communications officer, in a statement Friday.
“UCF Libraries is evolving to better support the way today’s students and faculty learn, conduct research, and engage with academic resources,” Gilmartin wrote.
She did not say if the school’s technology lending program, which operated in the libraries at both UCF’s downtown and main east Orange campuses, would make its equipment available in some other way.
The university’s human resource department called library employees Thursday morning to tell them not to come into work and that their positions had been eliminated, one former employee said.
“There was no notice. There was no warning. There was nothing,” said the former employee who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals.
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The person was “devastated” to lose their role at the library, adding it was “the best job I ever had” and fears the loss of the technology lending program will hurt low-income UCF students.
Some students borrow laptops, cameras and other technology — devices they cannot afford on their own — to complete coursework, the former employee said.
The cuts come as UCF faces the new fiscal year in July anticipating millions of dollars less in state funding than it had once expected. UCF stood to gain about $20 million in funding from the state’s “preeminent” university program this year, but this spring the Florida Legislature chose to do away with that initiative.
Christine LaRue, a parent of a UCF sophomore, said her daughter would borrow camera equipment from the campus library to take photos of rocket launches at Kennedy Space Center. Her daughter, who is in UCF’s School of Visual Arts and Design, is now asking whether or she can afford her own camera.
LaRue is from Charleston, South Carolina, and out-of-state students at UCF have seen tuition and fee increases over the last several years. So the family is now paying more money for fewer resources at UCF, in what she said feels like a “bait and switch.”
“We were sold one set of resources on campus, and it feels like that’s gotten worse,” LaRue said.
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