Library Blogs

By far one of the most amazing experiences was working with my club in the Design Lab space over the course of the year. Being able to see one team sewing electrode sleeves, while another tests circuits and software, while yet another team works on a printed part and assembling an arm. The culmination of all of this work was also realized in the Design Lab with final testing, assembly, and photos of the device before we gave it to Julian, occurring in the Design Lab spaces. It is so unique to have a space such as this as accessible as it is, and Justin’s encouragement towards the pursuit of collaborative work is what makes it all possible for us to do.

As the year comes to an end, I thank the Design Lab for developing both my hard and soft skills. I experienced the wonders of multidisciplinary collaboration, and just how much people love to share their interests with others. I believe the best way to learn is through simply speaking with others. In doing so, I was quickly able to learn their interests, and hey, some of them also became mine before I knew it!

My first year at the Shapiro Design Lab is ending at this moment, as I sit in the Lab writing this blog post during my last Open Workshop shift. I have worked on many projects, consulted a few university course teams, and attended many campus-wide workshops. Through them all, I have gained a wonderfully positive view on the Lab and its ability to bring so much knowledge to one time and place.

While working at the Design Lab, I gained a real appreciation for interdisciplinary and collaborative projects. I helped to create a variety of things that I normally wouldn’t have the skills or ability to create, and I learned a lot from others by working alongside them. Exploring 3D modelling was a really fascinating experience to me, and getting to see a physical manifestation of my explorations was incredible and really highlighted the real-world impact 3D designing could have.

Working at the Design Lab has allowed me to do “something new” on at least 3 different levels: (1) Learning how to do new skills; (2)Working as a “librarian” assistant; and (3) Cutting edge technology and topics. I never would have guessed I would be working in a library. Working as a resident of the library has opened my eyes to how much I share in common with librarians who like myself want to encourage the dissemination of information as well as culture, science, and truthful exploration of information.

Working at the Shapiro Design Lab was a valuable and unforgettable experience. I was able to explore different types of interesting projects related to both data science and our library community. It gave me an opportunity to apply the knowledge and skills you learned in the classroom to a real-world situation and to collaborate with other student developers. Mainly I participated in the AwesomeBox, an interface that shows recommended books by peers, Measure The Future, a sensor that collects information about how people use library spaces, which is adapted from the open platform of http://measurethefuture.net, and the Zooniverse, data aggregation that measuring an annotation reliability for projects with volunteers to participate in crowd-sourced scientific researches.

Discovering library technology as a student developer working on the AwesomeBox and Measure The Future projects

Are you a fan of games, but not the electronic kind? Much of our collection of over 7,000 games does consist of computer and video games, but we also have over 200 board games that can be played within the CVGA space. We also have over 100 tabletop role-playing books available, featuring many different game systems. These books can be borrowed for up to 3 days at a time.

The Special Collections Research Center is pleased to announce a new exhibit, Quaker Oats Makes a Movie: A Scrumdiddlyumptious Wonka Adventure. This exhibit, curated by students in Matthew Solomon's SAC 335 class, explores the production of the film Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, and Quaker Oats's unexpected involvement in the film industry.

The Library Student Engagement Ambassadors were back this semester with new events and some tried and true favorites. Always striving to show that the Library is more than just a place to study and check out books, this group of seven undergraduate students worked hard during the Winter semester to bring the U-M community fun and exciting events from the UGLi and beyond. Check out what we were up to this semester and be on the lookout for more Engagement Ambassador events in the Fall term.