Students looking forward to having a night in the library that did not involve studying will have to look for something else to fulfill their champagne wishes and caviar dreams.
Organizers and library officials confirmed that the fourth annual library party will not be hosted by Perkins and Bostock libraries this year, citing a combination of planning and funding issues for its demise.
The event—which has been hosted by a different student group every year for the past three years—was supposed to be organized primarily by the Duke Partnership for Service and focus on the theme of service and civic engagement. “The Benefit,” as this year’s party was being called, was scrapped when the event fell behind schedule and the library and co-sponsor Purple pulled out.
Deborah Jakubs, University librarian and vice provost for library affairs, said she did not want to host the party unless it could be as successful as in previous years.
“It has become a tradition,” she said. “I don’t want the library party to become sort of ho-hum. I don’t want people to say, ‘The library party wasn’t that great this year.’”
Senior Adam Nathan, president of DPS, said the event could not go forward as planned because of the difficulty of raising the necessary funds in a shorter amount of time than usual. DPS began organizing “The Benefit” after Winter Break, although they took on the responsibility for the party in the Fall. DPS was able to raise nearly $30,000 for the party, Nathan said. Junior Sharon Mei, vice president of events for DPS, added that DPS was under the impression that in past years, the library had matched the funds raised by the hosting student group.
“You can imagine the difficulty of planning such an event with half the budget and half the amount of time than the previous years,” Nathan said.
Duke Libraries did not contribute to the $41,000 raised by the International Association last year to fund the library party, said senior Alexis Rosenblum, president of IA.
Nathan added that there will be an event this semester that accomplishes the same fundamental goals DPS hoped would be promoted through the library party. The party will be on the same scale, but held at a different venue.
Jakubs said library officials who worked with DPS felt the organization was not keeping with the schedule that had been set for planning the event.
“[DPS] provided us with updates from time to time,” she said. “But fairly early on it was clear that the timetable we have to adhere to, that’s kind of worked—tried and true—over last three years, was kind of slipping. I was willing to assume, give them the benefit of the doubt, this would be OK, but it got to within three weeks of the date of the party and there still was no visible signs of publicity anywhere.”
Mei wrote in an e-mail, however, that they did meet the deadlines set by representatives of DPS and Purple.
Even after DPS came back to the library with a scaled-down proposal, Jakubs said she did not believe the event could work. After discussing the situation with Steve Nowicki, vice provost and dean of undergraduate education, and Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta, Jakubs decided that the library should pull out of the event.
“I explained the situation and just decided that it would be better all around [to cancel the party] because my perception was that it was going to be not that successful because [the organizers] had not gotten it together,” she said.
Senior Sam Bowler, founder and president of Purple, also said the event suffered from poor coordination this year. Purple was approached by DPS to help plan the party, but did not have direct interaction with library officials, Bowler said. They too decided to pull out of the party when it appeared that it would be difficult to pull off an event as successful as in past years.
“We were trying to sprint to the finish in the end,” Bowler said. “The library said that we didn’t have the pieces in order, which we didn’t. We said ‘You’re right, we’re going to come back and do this another time when it makes more sense.’”
The event was started three years ago by two students, Rachel Weeks and Haley Hoffman, both Trinity ’07, under the theme “DukePlays.” Mi Gente organized “Latin Chic” in 2008 and IA planned “Pangaea” last year. Jakubs estimates attendance at the party the last three years to be in the range of 1,500 to 2,000 people.
Rosenblum—who was then executive vice president—said last year, IA also faced difficulties raising funds in the midst of the economic downturn and budget cuts. IA solicited different university offices and academic departments to give small donations. Larger bodies such as the Student Organization Finance Committee and Campus Council gave more substantial donations.
Campus Council allocated $5,000 for this year’s party which was a 43 percent increase over last year’s allocation of $3,500.
DPS did not approach SOFC or Duke University Union for funding, sources within the organizations said.
Jakubs said she hopes the library will continue to host the party in years to come. She has discussed with Nowicki and Moneta the possibility of switching to a new model in which the funding comes from a different source, such as the library or student affairs budgets.
“I do feel very badly,” Jakubs said. “I know they put a lot work into this. Just from my own experience I had to decide that it wasn’t going on schedule and it was going to need to not happen this year.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.