Student Stories

When I began my Library Engagement Fellows project, I expected to spend most of my time organizing resources and learning a new digital platform. What I did not expect was how much I would learn about a region connected to my own family history. Over the course of two semesters, I worked with Librarian Jeff Martin to develop a research guide on Odisha, a state in eastern India, while gaining new perspectives on research, accessibility, and digital resource creation. My project began during the Fall 2025 semester and continued into the Winter 2026 semester. Working alongside Librarian Jeff Martin, I have been helping develop a South Asia LibGuide focused on Odisha, a state in eastern India. The guide is intended to serve as a resource for students, researchers, and community members interested in learning more about the region's history, culture, language, politics, and scholarly resources.

During my Summer Fellowship in Library User Experience, I explored wayfinding in U-M’s Hatcher Graduate Library. By reviewing past studies, speaking with library staff, and hearing directly from visitors, I gathered insights to design three conceptual wayfinding kiosk prototypes. This fellowship strengthened my research and design skills, while deepening my appreciation for the invisible design decisions that quietly help people feel confident and welcome in a public space.

From October 2025 to April 2026, I worked alongside my amazing project partner, Katherine (Kate) Jeong, on Exploring Anime: Collections Research and Outreach Programming under our wonderful supervisor, Karen Reiman-Sendi, as part of a Library Student Engagement Fellows project. Our goal was to understand the scope of the University of Michigan Library’s anime collection and raise awareness of it to students and visitors of the library through outreach and programming events. Furthermore, we wanted to showcase that, as the University is a research institution, anime is an expansive genre worth analyzing in a cultural, stylistic, and literary context.

BLUElab Metro is far more than a typical student organization within the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering. We are a student-run, multidisciplinary team dedicated to a singular, powerful mission: to design sustainable, community-centered solutions that directly address local challenges while empowering the people most affected by them. We believe that true engineering excellence is found at the intersection of technical innovation and social responsibility. Our work focuses on long-term partnerships rather than short-term fixes, allowing us to design with our community members rather than just for them. This collaborative approach ensures that the outcomes are not just functional, but deeply tailored to the specific goals, cultural heritage, and needs of our partners.

Since 2023, our efforts have been entirely focused on a transformative partnership with Willow Run Acres (WRA), a nonprofit founded by T.C. Collins in Superior Township, Michigan. T.C. is a visionary community leader who views the land as a classroom and a tool for empowerment. Through WRA and the Clay Hill Community Farm, he works tirelessly to address food insecurity and the erasure of Black history in Washtenaw County. T.C.’s connection to farming is a generational legacy, handed down through ancestors who farmed under the most difficult circumstances of enslavement and sharecropping.

This project has come about as part of the UM Library’s Territorial Acknowledgement Working Group, who has investigated multiple tangible actions the University is able to accomplish to honor the original stewards of this land, the Anishnaabeg and Wyandot peoples, whose ‘land grant’ allows for this University’s existence. One of these action items is to become leaders in Indigenous Knowledge sharing, which includes this project to transcribe/caption Ojibwe language lessons to make them available online through the UM Library via Alma Digital. These language materials were created by Basil Johnston, a prominent Anishnaabe scholar, whose work continues to educate native people long past he walked on.

As someone currently in the MSI (Master of Science in Information) program, I was on the hunt for any opportunity to work within an information space. I didn’t have much experience in said field, and so I was set on a mission to find a chance to work somewhere in the U-M Library throughout the academic year. And so when I discovered this position as an engagement fellow, I was immediately excited to both widen my scope and hone my skills as an information professional and work on a project with a subject matter that interests me personally.

The project, “Exploring Anime: Collections Research and Outreach Programming”, was focused on research, collection analysis, and outreach/programming with the AskWith Media library’s anime collection. Within the scope of our project, my project teammate Alina Murata and I defined “anime” as an audiovisual medium consisting of animated works of Japanese origin. Thus the overarching theme and question of our project was of the significance and relevance of anime within the library collection, as well as how that can be incorporated into programming.

As the Winter 2026 semester draws to a close, the Student Employee Engagement Committee (SEEC) would like to acknowledge the hardworking student employees that are vital to the daily operations and success of the University of Michigan Library. The support they provide to students, faculty, staff, and guests is immense and we truly appreciate all of their efforts!

The Library Student Ambassadors reflect on their experience hosting Café Shapiro 2026.

The Library Ambassadors collaborated with the Design Lab to hold a Design Day event.

The Stamps MFA Cohort ‘25 created an artist catalogue titled stop-loss, documenting our thesis exhibition. The idea was born from a collective desire to bring our projects to print while understanding our work within the context of contemporary art theory. The book features seven second-year Stamps MFA students: Hannah Buchanan, Sam Griffith, Andy Maticorena Kajie, Laura Mackie, Okyoung Noh, Charlie Reynolds, and Darren Spirk. Each artist has four pages featuring photographs of their thesis exhibition in the Stamps Gallery. Wall text from the thesis show is juxtaposed alongside exhibition photos taken by Andy Maticorena Kajie. In addition to the MFA students, we also asked Stamps faculty, staff, and collaborators to contribute writings that analyze how the theses connect to each other and our current socio-political climate, including themes such as loss, climate futures, identity, politics, and landscape. The catalogue itself is about 50 pages, designed by Detroit-based designer Emily Anderson with the inclusion of thesis exhibition graphics by Sam Griffith. Detroit’s Inland Press printed 150 copies of the 5.5” x 8.5” saddle-stitched catalogues. This project is a way for us to reflect on and examine our work and the work of our peers, which merge visual practice with critical inquiry to foster dialogue.