Hundreds of University of Auckland students and supporters protested today against the planned closure of several libraries over fears about what it will mean for their learning and research.---
many hundreds of University of Auckland students and supporters have rallied today to protest against the closure of several specialist libraries the universities architecture and planning music and dance and Fine Arts libraries are all earmarked for closure but students say there haven't been consulted about of what it means and they fear what the closures will mean for their learning and research and with the sense that the university is losing something as an institution our reporter Sarah Robson was the lead by a band from the music school hundreds of students carrying banners and placards much from the university's general library to the office of the Vice Chancellor one of them was thirdly a finance student Rose Burge she says it feels like the university is taking resources away from students with its library closure proposal gabriela jimenez rojas studies planning and urban design the architecture and planning library is set to be demolished and she's worried about how they'll access the books they need but visual people and we need those around us we need the ability to look at something and be inspired by it because it's in front of us and not have to always like think of oh this might be something I need in terms of my research and then I have to go looking for it that's it's not the way architecture works it's not the way planning we're x-ray driven by what's around us under the proposal the specialist libraries will be merged with the general library but because there's not enough space there some of the books we put into storage that means students will have to request books and it'll take 24 hours for them to be delivered gabriella Jimenez Rojas says some people are rethinking their future study plans I know I'm rethinking definitely dreaming my design masters and my penny masters here because I don't know whether the resources are gonna help me and whether they're gonna give me the the scope that I need or maybe I need to go somewhere else to be able to get all of that so if the university is trying to drive students away it's doing a very good job the Oakland University Students Association president and a Kozak says students haven't been consulted on the library closure proposal we want the process to be halted before it goes to a panel so it's going to go to a panel there's no students on that panel we've been asking and we're not allowed to have any students on that panel and we're not allowed to have any Evan use of official consultation so we want it now to be halted and for students to actually get a say on these faces and a kuszak says they understand they can't be involved in any decision-making around employment issues but they should be able to have a say about the spaces students use Rachel Ashby who finished her honours degree in finance last year sister university has ignored the views of its biggest stakeholders that's really absolutely unacceptable for a university to neglect as large a stakeholder to neglect the people that it predominantly exists for as its researchers and its students and to refuse them access into a process that is fundamentally challenging their major resources and Rachel Ashby sees they're not giving up we're not going to be quiet about this you know we care about our specialist librarians there's 45 jobs on the line here we care about these spaces there are community gathering points and that's something that the university fundamentally hasn't understood because they haven't talked with us the students wanted to present a petition to the universities Vice Chancellor Stewart McCutcheon but they were locked out of the Clocktower building and had to hand it over to the head of security instead a university spokeswoman said the university had no response to the students calls for the consultation process to be halted so the abuse could be included morty Horta courtier here he coursera Robson aho