Library Blogs

U-M's Michigan Medicine has a new initiative called Victors Care, a tailored version of a health system called "Concierge Care" which is addressed to patients who can trade monthly or yearly funds for special attention, short waits and 24/7 ability to contact a physician from this program. Anna Schnitzer examines the new initiative in particular regard to the university's commitment to equity and inclusion.

Don't miss "Handwritten Heritage: Arabic Texts in Manuscript" on display March 5th - April 13th in the Special Collections Exhibit Gallery (660J) on the 6th floor of Hatcher! The exhibit features a selection of iconic Arabic texts from the holdings of the Islamic Manuscripts Collection preserved in the University Library.

During this final month of the exhibit The Life and Times of Lizzy Bennet (November, 20, 2017 - March 30, 2018), a series of “Dining with Jane Austen” posts will explore mealtimes in Georgian England and look at some of the recipes that might have been enjoyed by Austen or her characters. In this first installment, we’ll take a look at breakfast.

We are pleased to share our first annual report! Presented within are some of the highlights, in the form of stories, statistics, and a few lists, from the period between July 2016 and June 2017.

Join Nicola's Books and the Ann Arbor District Library for a conversation between author Kathleen Flynn and U-M Residential College Creative Writing Director Laura Thomas on Wednesday, March 7, 2018 from 7:00-8:30pm in the Downtown Library's Multi-Purpose Room. Flynn and Thomas will discuss Flynn's debut novel, The Jane Austen Project, in which two researchers from the future are sent back in time to meet Jane and recover a suspected unpublished novel.

The Digital Content & Collections department begins an ambitious audit/assessment of our 280+ digital collections. This is the second in a blog series about the endeavor, noting how we started with a pilot group of collections to assess and the lessons learned.

An outline of the workflow developed to image and preserve content from obsolete floppy disks. Part 2 of 2.

Perch’s mission is to make research more accessible to undergraduates.
UROP, the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, does a great job at its mission: helping underrepresented and first-generation students gain their first research experience and make the most of it. When UROP started 25 years ago, it was able to accommodate every eligible student who applied.That’s no longer true. The number of undergraduates seeking research experience has grown tremendously in the last decade. Why?

For many students, undergraduate research is their first experience working on real-world problems that may provide widespread impact and help people in the future. Through research, students gain valuable critical thinking skills, a new way of asking questions. Research is a chance for students to apply what they’ve learned in class to the real world, to venture boldly beyond the maps of the known. Research is a chance to improve people’s lives, it’s the chance to get a law of nature named after you, it’s the universe trying to understand itself. Not to mention that undergraduate research experience is now necessary rather than an added bonus when applying to graduate school, industrial R&D jobs, and numerous other career paths.

Jeff Witt details the recent launch of the Inclusive Intercultural Skills Series (IISS) by the Library Diversity Council's (LDC) subcommittee on learning curriculum and event planning.

Two time travelers from a future world arrive in 1815 to retrieve a lost manuscript and letters by Jane Austen. They are forbidden to change the past, but as they come to know Austen and her family, they decide to try to save her life. Whether they succeed or not, I will not say, but this is a suspenseful and thought-provoking novel, an intriguing combination of science fiction and Jane Austen spin-off.