“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” — Cicero
If news broke that Duke would be shutting down Perkins Library, the entire campus would be filled with protesting students. After all, the library is the intellectual and social hub of campus, a place where profound ideas are shared and priceless memories are made. I couldn’t imagine Duke without its libraries. As unfathomable as this story may sound, this exact scenario is playing out with little fanfare at the Marine Lab.
On Friday, April 4, members of the Duke University Marine Lab (DUML) community received a message that the campus’ library, Pearse Memorial Library, would be closing, effective July 1, 2025. The decision comes as a university looks to cut costs in the face of declining federal funding for research. Funding cuts, in addition to the rise of digitization and a faulty HVAC system, were cited as the primary reasons for the library’s closure. The library has survived much worse — hurricanes, extreme flooding, political turmoil and the rapid urbanization of the marine environment around it. But after serving the Marine Lab community for 50 years, the library is set to be shuttered.
The closure of Pearse Memorial Library is a harbinger of more cuts that will occur university-wide. As a part of the University's recent cost-cutting initiative, the “strategic realignment and cost reduction process” will whittle away resources that the University deems non-essential. It’s a sobering reminder that research doesn’t pay for itself: it is sustained by federal grants, philanthropic dollars and support from industry.
Universities aren’t designed to be money-making machines. Duke’s mission statement contains some pretty lofty goals — promoting human happiness, curing diseases and advancing the frontiers of knowledge — but making money is not one of them. Yes, I understand that maximizing profits and running a financially solvent institution are two very different things. But that doesn’t mean that research and university services like a library aren’t valuable simply because they aren’t likely to turn a profit.
Let’s be honest — marine science doesn’t bring in the big bucks. But even if marine science isn’t a profit-maximizing field, I believe that the Marine Lab is one of the most valuable units of the University. Marine science is a young field — we know less about the ocean floor than we do about the surface of Mars. But much of what we do know about the seafloor is thanks to Dr. Cindy Lee Van Dover, a world-renowned oceanographer and former Marine Lab director. And Dr. Van Dover is just one of many examples of faculty at DUML advancing the frontiers of knowledge about a part of our Earth that we know little about.
Yes, the Marine Lab may be important, but why does it need a library?
After all, the email announcing the library’s closure promised that “no interruption or reduction in the essential library services and resources” would occur. If that’s the case, then why oppose the closure of the physical library space?
The answer lies in the two populations that benefit the most from the library, undergraduate students and the surrounding communities in Carteret County.
The Duke Marine Lab distinguishes itself from larger marine research institutions, such as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute or the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, in that it is a highly accessible space for undergraduate research. Unlike in Durham, where most undergrad research experiences involve performing repetitive tasks in a 40-person lab, the Marine Lab allows undergrads to take control of their own research. When I was at the Marine Lab, I had the opportunity to design two of my own research projects from start to finish — which is unheard of back in Durham. But this is the norm at the Marine Lab. In some cases, undergrads can even use the research vessel R/V Shearwater to conduct research.
The library is a core component of this research experience. There’s a myth that the Marine Lab library is never used because “kids these days don’t read anymore.” That couldn’t be further from the truth. Students at the Marine Lab read books from the library frequently because the Pearse Memorial Library has an exemplary selection of titles focused on marine science and policy. Some of my favorite titles I have checked out include "The Quiet Crisis" by Stewart Udall and "The History of Down East," which tells the story of rural fishing communities near the Marine Lab. Both books have deeply impacted my conceptions of the environment and the way humans interact with it.
You can call me an old man — but there is a special feeling, an intangible yet profound notion, that you feel when opening up a physical book. A book’s prickly pages or musty smell can add more value to a story than the words themselves. The experience of reading a hard-copy book cannot be replicated by scrolling through a monotonous 452-page PDF on your laptop. Furthermore, many titles housed at the Marine Lab library are out of print and don’t have digital counterparts. As such, replacing Pearse Memorial Library with a digital library is wholly insufficient.
Surrounding communities in Carteret County will also suffer if the library closes. The Marine Lab does an excellent job of connecting with the local community through programs such as the Community Science Initiative and the DukeEngage Community Outreach program. These programs, in addition to the Marine Lab’s open house, provide opportunities for community members to explore the library and learn more about marine science. Since the Duke library system is open to non-Duke-affiliated persons, the library serves as a repository of knowledge for the community.
While this may seem insignificant to us, it’s important to remember that 30% of residents in Carteret County are considered low-income. The local public library is modest. The Marine Lab library is a place where young kids from the area cultivate an appreciation for the environment, a sentiment that will pay dividends for decades to come. A digital library will not reap the same benefits.
The real reason why the Marine Lab library is closing has nothing to do with “evolving and enhancing Duke’s library services” — it’s all about the money. The existence of the Marine Lab has always frazzled the accounting team back in Durham because it’s relatively costly for its small size and generates little revenue. But if you look beyond the balance sheet, you will find the most impactful and irreplaceable unit at Duke.
The University knows this too. That’s why the Marine Lab is featured prominently in promotions for the Duke Climate Commitment and the “Made for This” fundraising campaign. Duke donors want solutions to climate change, and the Marine Lab is well equipped to provide them.
But climate solutions don’t appear out of thin air — they are built upon a knowledge base. That knowledge base is Pearse Memorial Library. It’s a storehouse of wisdom that can’t be replaced by a glitchy university library website, difficult-to-navigate-PDFs and journal articles stuck behind paywalls. Saving the library is integral to unlocking the Marine Lab’s potential as a climate changemaker.
Aaron Seigle is a Trinity junior. His pieces typically run on alternate Fridays.
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