The Inforum Library at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Information (the iSchool), has long been recognized for its collection of scholarly and professional literature in information and heritage studies that supports students, faculty, staff, academics, and practitioners.

The Inforum collection is a unique library collection that has been consistently lauded in American Library Association (ALA) accreditation and administrative reviews of the iSchool.

Despite evidence pointing to the importance of the Inforum collection, on February 20, 2018, the Dean of the iSchool announced that "the bulk of the Inforum’s remaining onsite collection" will be moved to Robarts Library (where borrowing and stacks access are restricted to certain users), and only the course reserves will be retained.  The Dean stated that this move would allow for additional student study spaces to be created.  This decision was announced only 18 months after the iSchool launched its newly renovated Inforum.  If implemented, this decision will result in the dismantling and dispersal of a well-used, and highly valued library collection.

The Dean's announcement was made without first engaging in wide and open consultations with all iSchool stakeholders.  The three full-time appointed Inforum librarians have expressed concerns over the impact that this decision will have on the stakeholder community.

Since her announcement, Dean Duff has met with students, alumni, and faculty members.  On April 9, 2018, the Dean informed the Inforum team, the in-house information professionals and the last of the constituencies for her to consult, that she will review the comments that she has received and make her final decision regarding the Inforum collection on or around April 15, 2018.

The Inforum librarians continue to urge the Dean to make a final decision that will allow the full Inforum Library collection to remain in the Inforum, where the community members and staff knowledgeable about the resources are located.

The need for space and the need for an on-site collection should not be pitted against each other, but resolved creatively, while following due process, so that both important needs can be met.  Library staff have measured the Inforum collection and the walls around the 4th floor: the Inforum can accommodate the whole of the Inforum Library collection if the collection were to be shelved along the vacant portion of the walls of the 4th floor.  This would free up space for new study tables, simultaneously providing in-house access to all of the materials contained in the Inforum Library collection.

Many stakeholders from the iSchool community oppose the dismantling and dispersal of the Inforum library collection.  Many of them have written letters, petitions, and statements in support of keeping the Inforum collection intact and on-site.

Specialized interdisciplinary collections shelved in open stacks enable serendipitous discovery and encourage intellectual freedom.  Information and heritage studies are highly interdisciplinary fields.  Keeping the Inforum collection together encourages community members to bridge subject silos by enabling shelf-browsing across a broad spectrum of disciplinary perspectives.  Practitioners and researchers need unhindered access to current literature and seminal works in their field, but not everyone can collect these works on their own, nor can everyone afford to pay for the UTL Direct Borrower/Research Reader or Alumni Borrowing cards that grant access to Robarts' stacks.  An intact Inforum collection allows information and heritage professionals to freely browse and borrow the literature in their field.

Due process and governance ensure that stakeholders' views are heard and integrated into the decisions made.  All previous important decisions about the Inforum Library collection have proceeded through the structure of Faculty Council, and required Council approval for a reason: the Inforum Library collection is a highly valued resource, the loss of which will have immeasurable impact on many stakeholders within the iSchool community.

The proposal to downsize the Inforum collection to an "extended course reserves" is contrary to the recommendations of the Information Services Task Force Report (2013), and the recommendations of the UTL/iSchool New Partnerships Working Group (2015), both of which were brought to Faculty Council for discussion, and voted on.

Timeline of events