Library Blogs

Popular culture depictions of the “roaring twenties” often focus on speakeasies and illicit cocktail consumption. However, as prohibition (1920-1933) pushed alcoholic beverages into shadowy corners, soft drinks took center stage in cookbooks for home cooks and party hostesses. This month’s recipe comes from Add-a-Leaf Hostess Book (1926) by Betty Beldon, in collaboration with Ida Bailey Allen.

In 2023, the U-M Library conducted its first comprehensive survey across students and employees. This blog post covers my specific research exploring the experiences of people with disabilities in the libraries, and their struggles with accessibility by analyzing data from the campus-wide survey. The goal of this research was to reveal struggles people with disabilities are facing in the libraries. By improving the library spaces with accessibility in mind, everyone – not just those with disabilities – benefits.

Kelly Goodknecht, Physical Collections and Access Supervisor, who has provided care for the Asia Library stacks for ten years since 2015, shares her experience managing the stacks of one of the largest East Asian collections in North America.

Reflections by Michigan Library Scholars intern Ayat Tolba on her 2025 project, which explored the experiences of first-generation international students and their engagement with U-M Library spaces, services, and resources.

Vivian, a first-generation college student at U-M, reflects on her Michigan Library Scholars internship exploring first-gen international students' experiences at the Library. She contributed to research, interviews, and analysis, gained skills in tech and design, and found meaning in community impact. The project deepened her commitment to inclusion, accessibility, and building empathetic systems in education.

Julian Creutz reflects on his second year as a Michigan Library Scholar for the Borderless Seed Stories project.

In 2020, the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship in Atlanta, Georgia reached out to the University of Michigan to contribute to the Sounding Spirit Digital Library (SSDL). They asked the Bentley Historical Library, the U-M Library, and the William L. Clements Library to contribute titles in our collections that would expand their digital collection. This post looks at the range of titles contributed, discusses the equipment used to digitize the titles, and analyses the ways that SSDL and U-M Library align and vary in their digitization efforts.

Reflections by Michigan Library Scholars intern Najmul Ritu on her 2025 project, which explored the experiences of first-generation international students and their engagement with U-M Library spaces, services, and resources.

Betty Bishop is the granddaughter of William Warner Bishop (AB 1892, MA 1893), who was university librarian at the Graduate Library in 1915 and helped create the Library Science Program (currently the School of Information) in 1926. Her love for the University of Michigan runs deep, with a three-generation history that she considers family. Her support of many programs and projects, including the U-M Library, is generous and vast. They represent her appreciation of the education and experiences she's had at the university.

In this video, Dr. Cathleen A. Baker (U-M Conservation Librarian Emerita) takes us through her years-long research into the earliest Western-made wove paper, including papermaking experiments to replicate the paper that first appeared in John Baskerville’s Virgil, published in Birmingham, England, in 1757.