Lights, Camera, Action

After Kim’s Video and Music closed in September, students were somewhat comforted by the store’s decision to donate its movie collection to Butler Library. Unfortunately, due to Butler’s strict movie-checkout policies, students will not be able to take full advantage of Butler’s new movies. To allow students to enjoy Butler’s expanded movie collection, Columbia should take quick action to make its existing checkout policy more lenient.

Kim’s was one of Morningside Heights’ few movie rental stores, so when it announced that it was closing in September, students were reluctant to let go of the easy access to movies it provided, and Kim’s donation of 28,000 movies—spanning genres that include anime, horror, comedy, documentary, and martial arts—came as a relief. Five months later, the collection remains unavailable. The delay stems from uncertainty over how best to catalog the movies on Columbia Libraries Information Online, and the selection will most likely be student-accessible by the beginning of the next academic year. However, there is more to accessibility than just availability. According to Butler’s current policy as stated online, movies cannot be taken out of Butler Media Center during the day, and if a movie is borrowed at night, it must be hand-delivered to the media center within an hour of Butler opening the next morning. These strict rules, designed to prevent students from damaging or stealing movies, often discourage students from watching the library’s videos altogether.

Instead of sticking to this restrictive policy, Butler should treat movies in the same way it treat books-films should be inspected and students fined if they are damaged or lost. Butler should also put a similar policy in place for its multimedia collection. Butler can prohibit students from checking out rare movies, and those required for class can remain on reserve and restricted to media-center viewing. It does not make sense for the library to loan a movie out for an entire semester—as Butler allows for some of its books—but the policy of hand-returning movies within a one-hour timeframe the next day is equally unreasonable, especially for students taking film courses or consulting a film for a research project. Butler should be more understanding of students’ full daytime schedules by extending the deadline at least until the end of the next day.

Students at Columbia work diligently, and they should be able to take advantage of the few opportunities they have to relax by watching a movie. Butler Library can help students unwind by permitting them to borrow a movie overnight, without the added stress of returning it early the next morning.