UCL Provost Malcolm Grant has admitted defeat in his college’s bid to take control of the cash-strapped Senate House Library from the University of London.

 Grant made the announcement ahead of today’s final decision by the University of London’s board of trustees on the future of Senate House Library, which loses more than £1m a year and lost a crucial government grant in 2008.

 The University of London considered three options to save the library from financial ruin – continuing the status quo but with cuts to service provision and space; conversion to a research-based library run by the School of Advanced Studies; and UCL’s bid to take over the collection and merge it with its own libraries, to which all University of London students would have access.

 But in an email to all UCL staff, Grant admitted his bid for the library had failed: “I still believe it is by far the most powerful vision and the University’s consultants confirmed that it could be the most cost-effective over time of all the options. Yet we were unsuccessful.

 ”Despite powerful support from the London School of Economics, Heads of the smaller colleges were worried that this might spell the end of the Federal University and were unwilling to support it.” 

Smaller colleges have long suspected Grant of trying to take over the University of London ever since the UCL chief published a report in 2005 calling for it to be broken up and for many of its most prized assets to be handed to UCL.

Senate House Library remains one of the most enduring symbols of the federal university, and is seen as a key reason for its continued existence.

However, last year the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) – which administers government funding for universities – withdrew Senate House Library’s national research library status, stripping it of substantial funding and plunging its future into uncertainty. External consultants CHEMS were called in to review the library’s finances, and warned it could not continue on its current basis.

Tags: Malcolm Grant, Provost, senate house library, UCL, ucl takeover, UL

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