Library Tech Talk

The University of Michigan Library pledges to update its major websites to use secure (HTTPS) connections between the servers and web browsers by December 2016.

DCU has a new, A1-sized V-cradle scanner for digitizing tightly bound books. This post examines the need, research, and choice of scanner we purchased.

The University of Michigan Library replaces roughly 1/4 of our computers every year. It is a long and complicated process when one considers the number of library staff and the number of computers (both in office and public areas where staff machines are used) involved.

This year we use a locally developed tool to streamline the process.

Everyone who works in the library, including some student workers, uses the intranet -- that’s over 450 people! In preparation for a major Drupal update and intranet redesign, the Intranet Upgrade Investigation Team (IUIT) has done a ton of thoughtful user research to guide our work including a survey, open card sort and closed cart sort. The findings are informing our progress and helping meet the goal of making the intranet a sustainable and user friendly tool that everyone wants to use.

How does a library present the right information to patrons at the right time and place in the face of changing services, new technologies and vendors? User Journeys provide a way to create and improve what information, services and tools will help users on their path to the resources and services they seek. Find out what insights our team gained from developing User Journeys and we'll tell you about tools, resources and templates you can use to make your own!

Operations staff and LIT’s LTIG (Learning Technologies Incubation Group) started work in April 2015 to define and build a Drupal-based Course Reserves request and processing system. Operations staff at Shapiro Undergraduate, Fine Arts, Music, Art, Architecture & Engineering, and Taubman libraries recently started using the new tool to capture and manage Course Reserves requests from faculty.

This post is a brief overview of the process in designing for large web-based systems. This includes understanding what makes up an interface and how to start fresh to create a good foundation that won't be regrettable later.

The open source software Hydra is, by its name and nature, modular and complex. Using this technology gives the University of Michigan the opportunity to participate in the development of an increasingly-adopted suite of tools with the flexibility to accommodate a host of needs and engage in the spirit and philosophy of open source software development. With open source, we must concern ourselves not just with our own institution’s needs and priorities, but those of a broader community.

For the past year, the University of Michigan Library IT (LIT) division has been devoting time & resources to conducting a thorough self-assessment. These efforts have included discussions focused on our application infrastructure, our division communication patterns, and our service workflows. And while these discussions were instrumental in helping identify challenges and potential solutions, we wanted to begin to collect hard data to help better understand the complexity of our work.

Over the past few years, the University of Michigan Library has progressively updated and enhanced the way we manage our subject, course, and specialized information guides with Springshare's LibGuides product. This post talks about the various customizations and integrations we've made along the way.