Classicist Richard Thomas has often posted on this board of the threat Harvard’s financial crisis poses to the university’s profoundly important library system, one of the great treasures of the world.

(That’s my feeling, certainly, based on my experience with it back in my graduate school days at Harvard.)

Now the Crimson reports that Thomas’ concern seems well-justified.

At yesterday’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences meeting, Dean Michael D. Smith—who ominously repeated the phrase “demands on our library have grown”—said that the University must address the intense budgetary pressures confronting the libraries.

“I ask that we not spend today’s meeting criticizing the past or rehashing historical budgets,” Smith said. “I ask that we focus on the future. What ideas do you have? What are the key characteristics of a model that can be held up as a future of the library system?”

Let’s consider those words. Is it really true, as Smith says, that “demands” on the libraries have increased—are there more users asking for more help?—or that, as one would expect, the number of users has remained fairly steady, but the libraries’ ability to meet those demands has declined?

This is not just a verbal distinction, because it goes to a certain agitprop in Smith’s language—a disingenuousness, frankly. And when administrators start veiling the truth in misleading words, you know something bad is about to happen.

Then there’s the question, “What are the key characteristics of a model that can be held up as the future of the library system?”

Well, of course, that implies that the current system is broken, which no one has established (except by the insinuation of Smith’s prior language), and that there needs to be a “future model.”

But the phrase “key characteristics” is also telling, because it connotes a certain minimalism: Replace those words with the phrase “bare bones” and I think you’ll have a more accurate sense of what Smith is suggesting…..