Though the entire campus faces steep budget cuts next year, Peter J. Shields Library’s funding woes particularly impact the vitality of the university, some UC faculty say.

UC Davis‘ library ranking has toppled from 35 to 60 in the last 15 years, according to the Association of Research Libraries.

The library administration has been asked to prepare for at least a 7 percent permanent funding cut next year, though final numbers will not be known until the state budget is finalized, said Helen Henry, associate university librarian for administrative services.

The rising costs of physical books and electronic databases further cripple the library’s ability to maintain its collections year after year, Henry said.

“If we even have a flat budget, it’s almost equivalent to a budget cut,” she said.

Henry said prices of library materials have shot up by 9.8 percent. In addition, the weakening American dollar has made making foreign purchases increasingly difficult, she said.

“All of these things take away purchasing power,” she said. “If our budget wasn’t cut, we’re actually losing.“

The end result is a squeeze on the discretionary purchases segment of the library’s budget, said Dan Goldstein, UC Davis social sciences and humanities librarian.

Goldstein said the academic departments depend on discretionary purchases to meet their needs. As costs have risen and the budget has remained virtually stagnant, the library is increasingly unable to meet departments‘ requests, he said.

This poses a problem to academic departments, which rely on the library to be able to make purchases for a faculty member’s area of expertise.

“For English and history, the library serves as the lab; it’s where you do your primary research,” Goldstein said.

Ted Margadant, chair of the history department, said the declining funding trend makes keeping pace with the publication of new books in “areas of history where the library has built outstanding collections” difficult. The cuts also prevent the library from building collections in fields that the department has developed recently, such as Middle Eastern studies and Islamic history, he said.

“Reversing the decline in funding for Shields Library is very important for the history department,” said Margadant in an e-mail interview. “Our faculty have helped the library build world-class collections in many fields of history that are vital to our research and that of our graduate students, and we require undergraduates in many of our courses to do research in the library.“

The library’s budget difficulties are particularly problematic because UC Davis is a research university that relies on its library’s prestige to recruit top faculty and graduate students, said English department chair Margaret Ferguson.

Ferguson, who used to teach at Columbia University, said UC Davis‘ strong library attracted her to the campus 10 years ago.

Faculty and graduate students also rely on the library’s collection to publish books of their own, Ferguson said.

“Our tenure and promotion system depends on our publishing books, and if our own university library doesn‘t regularly buy books published by humanists through university presses, the discipline as a whole is harmed,” she said in an e-mail interview.

While the library administration, unionized librarians and faculty all seem to agree that the library is under-funded, there is no general consensus as to why that is the case.

Axel Borg, a UC librarian of 25 years and president of the union representing UC Davis librarians and lecturers, said the administration has done a “poor job” of advocating for the library.

Library and university administrators have cited UC Davis‘ large lab animal population and high electricity bills as unique budget challenges that prevent the library from getting more funds – an argument that Borg does not buy.

“Animals didn’t just arrive; we’re really overextended,” he said.

Other UC campuses, such as UC Irvine and UC San Diego, have experienced over a 50 percent funding increase for their libraries over the past 15 years. UC Davis‘ library budget, on the other hand, has only increased by 3 percent.

The UC San Diego budget expenditures have increased over twofold since 1993, and funding for its libraries “mirrors this growth trajectory,” said Dolores Davies, director of communications of UCSD libraries.

“A strong and dynamic library system has been essential in supporting and facilitating this academic growth and achievement, both in terms of providing a rich and diverse mix of intellectual resources (both print and digital) and instructional support,” Davies said.

Similarly, UC Irvine’s library budget has increased by about 75 percent over the past 15 years to parallel its campus growth, said Kevin Ruminson, director of planning, assessment, and research for UC Irvine libraries.

“The libraries have initiated new services and strengthened collections, and have made the case for funding the libraries as an essential academic resource for the growing campus,” said Ruminson in an e-mail interview. He added that UC Irvine will continue to “expand services and collections to meet the needs of the increased student and faculty population.“

But such has not been the case at UC Davis, though Henry said it is no fault of the administration.

“I truly believe that the chancellor and provost are supportive of the library. They’re not dealing us a bad hand; they’re trying to support the library as best they can with the resources they can,” she said.

When The California Aggie contacted Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef for an interview, Associate Vice Chancellor Maril Stratton said the chancellor wished to relay that “he doesn’t make decisions about individual budgets.“

Henry said library’s funding isn’t exclusively controlled by the library or campus administration, but by librarians who can apply for grants. UCSD, UCLA, and UC Berkeley have all successfully secured grants, she said.

The UC Davis Academic Senate has appointed a task force to investigate the library’s budget woes. Professor Andrew Waldron, chair of the task force, said he expects the report to be released next month.

Regardless of the causes of the lack of library funding, the consequences are severe, Margadant said.

“Short-term budget cuts in library acquisitions and professional library staff can inflict long-term damage that would jeopardize the reputation of the library within the UC system and throughout the nation,” he said.

PATRICK McCARTNEY can be reached at campus@californiaaggie.com.

The UC Davis School of Law will make history this summer when Kevin Johnson becomes the new dean and the first Latino to head a law school in the University of California system.

Johnson, current associate dean for academic affairs at the law school, which is located in King Hall, will assume his new position on July 1, replacing current dean Rex Perschbacher.

Perschbacher said he believes UC Davis Law School is ready for a change in leadership.

“When I began [my term] in 1998, I only imagined staying on for 10 years maximum,” he said in an e-mail interview. “After 10 years, a law school benefits from a change in vision.“

Perschbacher said that he believes it was Johnson’s outstanding qualifications that led Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef to recommend him to the regents.

“[Johnson] stands out for his astonishingly productive scholarship, excellent teaching, 10 years of administrative experience and national profile,” he said. “He was overwhelmingly endorsed by the law school faculty.“

Johnson, a graduate of Harvard Law School, joined the UC Davis law school faculty in 1989 and has served as an associate dean for the past 10 years. He is known for his expertise in immigration and Chicano studies and has published several books on American immigration and border law.

Johnson is the recipient of numerous honors and awards including the 2004 Clyde Ferguson award from the Association of American Law Schools. In 2006 he was named the Law Professor of the Year by the Hispanic National Bar Association.

Johnson said he looks forward to building on Perschbacher’s numerous achievements.

“Dean Perschbacher has overseen an intellectual renaissance at the school of law,“ he said. “I will do my very best to take the school to the next level while maintaining the special King Hall community that we have today.“

Johnson said that, despite the current budget cuts being made across the UC system, he remains optimistic about the future of the law school.

“Fundraising and development will need to be a priority,“ he said. “The budget is quite a challenge, but I am confident with the support of alumni and friends of UC Davis School of Law, we will be able to weather the difficult times ahead.“

“The greatest challenge the law school faces is maintaining access for all qualified students in a time of greatly increased student fees,” Perschbacher said.

He said that he believes Johnson will continue his goal of moderating fee increases and increasing student financial support in the face of the budget crisis.

Hollis Kulwin, associate dean for student affairs at the law school, said she is confident that the regents have selected the right person for the job.

“I have known [Johnson] six years,” she said. “He is a wonderful colleague and a brilliant scholar. [He is] an excellent choice.“

ERICA LEE can be reached at campus@californiaaggie.com. XXX

UC Davis forensic science program researchers testing new microscopic engraving technology on gun firing pins have concluded that while it is feasible, the technology did not work well for all guns and ammunition tested.

“My study shows that while this technology works with some firearms, it also has problems in other firearms,“ said UC Davis forensic science graduate student Michael Beddow. “At the current time, it is not recommended that a mandate for implementation of this technology in semiautomatic handguns be made. Further testing and analysis is required.“

Todd Lizotte of ID Dynamics, located in Londonderry, N.H., developed a way to use an ultraviolet laser to engrave microscopic markings onto firing pins, similar to how codes are engraved onto computer chips.

When the trigger is pulled, the micro-stamped firing pin will hit the primer of the cartridge case and leave the marked code on it. The idea is that the ejected cartridge can be matched to the gun from which it was fired, which is the premise for the Crime Gun Identification Act of 2007.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger passed the Assembly Bill 1471 in October 2007, requiring all new models of semiautomatic pistols sold in California after Jan. 1, 2010 to be engraved with a micro-stamped code in at least two areas of the “internal surface or internal workings parts of a pistol.“

Fred Tulleners, director of the Forensic Science Graduate Group, discovered issues with the process.

“When trying new things, we want to really investigate it,” he said. “We found it is technologically flawed.“

Tulleners is the former director of crime labs in the Sacramento and Santa Rosa areas as well as the former director of the California Criminalistics Institute.

Beddow tested the micro-stamped firing pins of six different semiautomatic handguns, two semiautomatic rifles and one pump action shot gun at the California Criminalistics Institute and the California Highway Patrol Academy.

Each firing pin contained three different types of codes: an alpha-numerical code on the tip of the firing pin surrounded by a gear code with a bar code going down the length of the firing pin. Recruits fired 2,500 rounds of ammunition to test the durability of repeated firing, Beddow said.

The ammunition was labeled in numerical order and shot through various guns. The cases were then collected in order to see potential change in the legibility of the characters. The firing pins themselves were photographed at intervals to determine if there had been any changes.

“We had mixed results. By and large, [in] most cases, the bar codes and gear codes did not succeed in impact. It has to do with how the firing pin operates. Sometimes they do multiple hits,“ Tulleners said. “For instance, [in] the AK-47 gangs use, the firing pins make multiple hits [to the cartridge].“

Multiple hits from the firing pin will mar imprints to the cartridge, thus nullifying the effectiveness of the micro-stamping. The most successful code was the alpha-numerical code.

“The alpha-numerical code provided the best quality of the numerical codes. The quality of forgeability of the impression ranged from firearm to firearm; every gun shoots differently and functions different so the legibility was different,” Beddow said. “Bottom line, the technology is feasible. However, [it] does not function equally.“

The study was supervised by David Howitt, a UC Davis chemical engineering and materials science professor, and was completed and informally released a year ago. The study was peer reviewed by six external reviewers, the National Research Council among them. This March, the council came out with the same conclusions in their report: more research would be needed to prove that firearms identification rests on firmer scientific footing.

Other concerns with the new technology include the cost of implementing codes on all firing pins and how beneficial the technology will be. According to Tulleners, there are three types of shootings: crimes of passion, professional hits and assassinations (which are less solvable) and gang shootings.

“This research conceivably affects gangs. However, we routinely link cartridge cases to guns,” Tulleners said. “Without DNA, gangs are notorious for passing guns, and just because you link a cartridge does not mean you’ll find who did it. Gangs can deface the firing pin or buy a whole bunch of firing pins and replace them.“

As for the cost of the firing pins, Tulleners estimated the engraved firing pins would cost $7.87 or $6.72 each, which is a very conservative estimate. “There is no real benefit to society, and the money is better spent on other progressions in society,” he said.

WENDY WANG can be reached at campus@californiaaggie.com.