Instead, she said, “if we moved it anywhere, it would have to be a move that’s logical in terms of the space, in terms of the ability to provide the right kind of service” and in terms of public access.

Garner said few locations fit that profile—with the exception of the North Yard’s Littauer Library, which houses government and economics collections.

“Frankly, Littauer is the only place I could imagine,” she said.

Verba said such a move would have to wait for some of Littauer’s current contents to move out—a development which he said was “a couple of years down the pipe.”

But Garner questioned the idea that the government documents collection’s role was distinct from that of Lamont as a library for undergraduates.

“It’s perceived that way,” she said. “I’m not sure that it really is. We did a survey of who used it, and approximately half of those who use it are undergraduates.”

Many of those undergraduates, she said, are government or history concentrators researching their theses.

But Garner said she did not think a move to Littauer would hamper College students.

“It’s not exactly out of the way,” she said. “It’s not exactly Hilles.”

Still, officials stressed that the move to Littauer was by no means definite, and depended in part on how it would impact undergraduates.

“It’s an idea that’s been proposed, but a plan is more than just an idea that gets batted around,” Garner said. “You have to start measuring and speaking to the people who would be affected, and certainly nothing like that has happened yet.”

Undergraduate Council President Rohit Chopra ’04 said he was worried about a larger tendency in Harvard’s library administration to ignore student needs.

“I think in general there’s a perception that undergraduates are a nuisance in the library system, rather than an important part of Harvard that needs access to these collections,” he said.

Chopra said he was especially concerned that administrators did not appreciate how undergraduates use the collections which may leave Lamont.

“It’s very heavily used for economics theses because it has all the data,” he said. “Lamont is the one that’s supposed to be the undergraduate library.”

And Chopra said he thought library officials’ priorities were badly skewed.

“It’s funny, because the library somehow found a way to pay for new administrative offices that were designed by a world-famous architect,” he said, referring to plans to renovate the Mt. Auburn Street building in the former site of Skewers and the Harvard Provision Company. “But at the same time they’re crying poverty when we ask for more reserves and other things that cost a tiny amount of money.

“What is interesting is that there was talk a few years ago about renovating Lamont and doing more for Hilles, but those were, I think, very empty promises,” Chopra said. “That money seems to have been diverted to new administrative offices and the new reading room at Widener.”

—Staff writer Simon W. Vozick-Levinson can be reached at vozick@fas.harvard.edu.