Library Blogs

Reflections by Michigan Library Scholars intern SJ Shin on their work on the "Borderless Seed Stories" 2024 MLS project.

July 30th is International Day of Friendship, a special occasion to celebrate the relationships and bonds that tie us together. Accessible through the Library’s OverDrive collection, these reads highlight the beauty of nurturing community, the joys and challenges of friendship, and how to nurture deeper connections.

Julian Creutz's contributions to his Michigan Library Scholars internship, called "Borderless Seed Stories," are outlined, along with what he learned through the project and his thoughts on its impact.

Working with large-scale datasets to understand the effect of library resources on student success raises a number of concerns around individual privacy, data security, and analysis. This blog post, summarizing a recent article in College & Research Libraries, describes a recent grant-funded project at the University of Michigan, discusses the steps we took to address those concerns, and some of the lessons we learned.

As a Michigan Library Scholars intern, I worked on a project about how international students experience the libraries, and what needs international students share and don’t share with American students. The aims of this project are to yield concrete findings to specific research questions and produce recommendations for the U-M Library so we can learn how to more effectively serve international students and make the libraries more inclusive, accessible, and useful spaces for all.

The international undergraduate student population at U-M makes up around 17% of our undergraduate community. To uncover their unique perspectives, U-M library conducted the first campus-wide survey in 2023. As a Michigan Library Scholar and an international student myself, I gained valuable skills and insights into my peers' experiences with the U-M library system, revealing some remarkable findings.

An upcoming film screening series (fall of 2024) will explore democracies, protest, and voting around the globe. Three films from the United States, China, and Korea, will spotlight various movements and issues affecting voters over the last fifty years. This project is part of the Michigan Library Scholars library internship.

The Asia Library would like to welcome three new interns, Hao Zhang, Suparna Hande, and Jisu Han. Each of them works on one of the three main subject areas of the Asia Library (Chinese studies, Japanese studies, and Korean studies).

In June 2003, the University of Michigan Library launched the Philippines digital collection, “The United States and its Territories, 1870 - 1925: The Age of Imperialism.” Featuring over 4,000 historical texts, it has seen significant engagement from Filipino users for twenty years. Contextual inquiry interviews with Filipino researchers revealed their appreciation for the preservation and access to historical materials, their enthusiasm for being included in research and design activities and opportunities to improve usability in specific areas. Our findings show the importance of enhancing digital collections to support researchers and preserve cultural heritage, especially for communities who have experienced the loss of these materials in their country of origin.

On this #FindingAidFriday, we are highlighting the recently processed papers of Jim Cohn, poet, writer, recording artist, editor, publisher, and curator of the online Museum of American Poetics. The Jim Cohn Papers (1953-2019) were donated in 2019 and encompass approximately fifteen linear feet of material documenting Cohn’s work across his several vocations through correspondence, research files and drafts, interviews by and of Cohn, published essays and poetry, journals, photographs, and audiovisual materials.