To understand the impact of the University of Toronto Library system's decision to introduce borrowing fees for non-University of Toronto students and faculty members, The Agenda approached Ian Milligan, a PhD candidate in History at York University, for an opinion.

The introduction of borrowing fees for visiting graduate students and faculty at the John P. Robarts Library is part of a broader scheme by the University of Toronto to formalize its own position as an ‘upper-tier’ university. Until this October, any visiting graduate student or faculty member from any Canadian university could simply show up at the Robarts library, present ID, and use the collections. After this October, scholars not associated with the University of Toronto must pay $200 a year for library privileges.

Why would the University of Toronto want to charge for access to their collections – a decision unique among all other university libraries in Ontario – and why all the fuss? The answers are linked. The University of Toronto’s library system is a gem, with collections third to only Harvard and Yale in North America. It is expensive to maintain and administrators claim that they plan to offset these costs through fees.

This is an important issue that demonstrates the broader underfunding of our post-secondary institutions. Like many of its counterparts, the University of Toronto has justified needs for more funds. However, the imposition of the fee may not be only about covering costs. It may also be, inadvertently or intentionally, about keeping non-University of Toronto students and faculty out.

This violation of academic courtesy betrays a tradition of knowledge sharing and the original vision of the library. The library’s name tells the story. The John P. Robarts Library – named after the former Ontario Premier - was not only constructed by provincial funds and financed through a special fund, but it also continues to be maintained through provincial funding. Last February, the province gave $15 million for facility renovations for straightforward reasons. As MPP Laurel Broten declared, “Given the significant number of users from other institutions and the broader community that use Robarts’ resources, this project is an investment in a provincial resource for the future.” It isn’t just capital funds either: $583 million came from the provincial government for University-wide operating funds last year. Indeed, an argument could be made that these publicly funded collections should be accessible to all taxpayers that fund them.

Will visitors pay the fee? An informal survey carried out in the York History Department was sobering. Out of 51 responding students, 45 would not be renewing their University of Toronto library cards, mostly because of the price. A lower fee would undoubtedly grab more ‘customers.’ Yet there is truth in York Professor William Westfall’s observation that “the vast majority of students not paying the fee recalls the difference between tariffs for revenue and tariffs for protection. The former must be kept low so that trade will continue and revenue will be raised. Let us say for Robarts a fee of $20.00. The whole purpose of tariffs for protection, however, is to raise the tariffs so high that trade will stop – i.e. protect the home market. Let us say $200.00. This keeps other graduate students away but of course raises very little revenue - which … might well be the purpose of the whole exercise.”

Is the message that if you want to use these resources, you might as well go to the University of Toronto? This certainly fits into a policy of centralizing graduate education at a select few universities. I hope that the show tonight demonstrates some of the potential pitfalls behind such a strategy. We need to encourage innovation at all universities and encourage centres of innovation. The University of Toronto has stellar programs, but so do most Canadian universities – in disparate and diverse fields that can’t be captured by a handful of institutions. We need to make sure the resources are made available to all researchers and students, so that we can encourage excellence wherever it can be cultivated. Borrowing fees move us in the direction of centralized and isolated education, which will hinder rather than facilitate truly cutting-edge and innovative research.

The University of Toronto was asked to comment on Ian’s blog post, but they have yet to email their reaction to The Agenda. If the University of Toronto sends a reply, it will be added to this post.

What do you think? Will borrowing fees at the University of Toronto Library system hamper Canadian education and research? Should the University of Toronto be allowed to charge fees to access its collection while receiving public funding?