Library Blogs

Curated by Helmut Puff and Pablo Alvarez in 2017, the exhibit "Reforming the Word: Martin Luther in Context" prompted an intriguing discovery: the presence in our collection of twelve books that once belonged to the Jewish Community Library of Berlin. This blog post delves into the circumstances that brought these books to our library.

In April 2023, the U-M Library opened a newly renovated floor, the Clark Commons, on the 3rd floor of the Shapiro Library. During the first year the Clark Commons was open (April 2023-May 2024), we collected a number of data points to assess whether the design goals for the public spaces on the floor were being met and to try to capture use trends. Throughout this initiative, a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods were used to capture both attitudinal and behavioral data in order to document lessons learned from this renovation that could be applied during future renovations.

A modular bike stand tray and side cup for bike maintenance tools were 3D printed using a design by JsR on Printables. The tray includes multiple screw holes for attaching additional compartments. A useful trick discovered during the process is that a corkscrew effectively removes supports from small, delicate screw holes due to its sharpness, maneuverability, and leverage.

Soojin Lee, Korean Acquisition Assistant, shares her experience co-planning the Library's International Mother Language Day event.

Reykjavík by Ragnar Jónasson and Katrín Jakobsdóttir is a cold-case mystery novel set in the Icelandic capital in 1986. When a teenage girl goes missing in 1956, the police fail to find her, dead or alive. Thirty years later, her disappearance has become Iceland's most famous closed case. A young reporter and his sister decide to find out what happened to her. Their search will put them in danger.

This is a study of life at three convents in Renaissance Italy, in three different cities--Venice, Florence, and Rome--seen through the eyes of the nuns who wrote chronicles, or histories, of their convents. Author K.J.P. Lowe discusses how the chroniclers were looked down on by male historians over the years, while their chronicles actually provided valuable information about their convents. It is an excellent read for Women's History Month.

Reflections on Café Shapiro 2025 from the 2024-2025 U-M Library Engagement Ambassador Team.

LIT’s Design and Discovery department received generous support from an anonymous donor to fund a Library User Experience Research Fellow position. Our first fellow was Suzan Karabakal, a master’s student at the U-M School of Information. She investigated and recommended changes to the way Library Search presents results. Suzan conducted user research to identify specific changes we could make to improve our “Everything” results screen and search results for Catalog and Articles.

Join us next Thursday, 20 March, between 4-6p for our next "Third Thursdays at the Library" event of the semester!

Library Engagement Fellow, V Shin, reflects on the transformations of the Borderless Seed Stories project, and announces upcoming event series, Seeding Dialogue!