Navigating Knowledge: Exploring the University of Michigan Libraries Resources
The University of Michigan Library system stands as a cornerstone of academic life, providing a vast array of resources and services to support students, faculty, and researchers. With a rich history dating back to the university's founding, the library has evolved into a dynamic hub for information discovery, preservation, and dissemination. This article delves into the diverse collections, specialized libraries, digital initiatives, and innovative services that define the University of Michigan Library system.
A Historical Overview
The Michigan Legislature established the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1838, allocating funds for a library that same year. The Board of Regents acquired the University Library's first volume, John James Audubon's Birds of America, in 1839, a testament to the university's early commitment to scholarly resources. This valuable book is now displayed in the Hatcher Gallery Exhibit Room.
Before a dedicated space was established, books were stored in various locations, including the Law School and professors' homes. In 1856, the North Wing of the University Building was remodeled to centralize the Library and Museum. The Library moved to the Law Building in 1863.
The university's first dedicated library building, designed by architects Ware and Van Brunt, was completed in 1883, with Raymond Cazallis Davis, the chief librarian, playing a key role. An addition was built to the south in 1898. By 1915, the overcrowded, wood-constructed General Library was deemed a fire hazard. A new building, designed by architect Albert Kahn, was dedicated on January 7, 1920, and is now the north building of the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library. By 1940, the University Library's card catalog contained 2,000 trays and 1.75 million cards.
A post-World War II enrollment boom led to the construction of an eight-story addition in 1970, housing much of the print collections, administration offices, the Map Library, Special Collections, and Papyrology. The Undergraduate Library was built in 1958 and later renamed for Harold T. and Vivian B. Shapiro.
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Size and Scope of the University Library
As of 2019-20, the University Library contained more than 14,543,814 volumes, while all campus library systems combined held more than 16,025,996 volumes. Founded in 1838, the University Library is the university's main library and is housed in 12 buildings with more than 20 libraries. The University of Michigan Library system is vast and comprehensive, encompassing a wide range of subjects and formats to meet the diverse needs of its users.
Key Libraries Within the System
The University Library system comprises numerous libraries, each with its unique focus and collections. Among the most significant are:
Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library: This is the university's primary research collection for the humanities and social sciences. It contains over 3.5 million volumes and over 10,000 periodicals written in more than 300 languages. Commonly cited collecting strengths of the Graduate Library include English and French history, papyrology, Germanic history and culture, classical archeology, military history, English Literature, social and political movements. Several divisional libraries are housed in the Hatcher Graduate Library building. The Graduate Library provides study carrels, copying machines, and microfilm readers to all of its patrons, and the stacks are open for browsing.
Shapiro Undergraduate Library: Designed to enhance the undergraduate experience, the Shapiro Undergraduate Library offers students an array of innovative programs and resources. The library offers more than 200,000 books and periodicals, access to a multitude of electronic information resources through its homepage, and a small collection of leisure reading materials. Harold T. and Vivian B. Shapiro Undergraduate Library (called "the UGLi," a pre-renovation nickname that stuck) includes all four floors of the Shapiro Library Building. It is a popular study and meeting place for U-M undergraduates, and has a solid, generalist collection of about 200,000 books and journals. The UGLi also offers a great many services to its students, including Course Reserves, Reference Services, and the Peer Information Consultant (PIC) program, which allows students to get research advice from fellow undergraduates. Café Shapiro is an annual forum for students, nominated by their professors, to read their creative work in a casual, coffeehouse-style environment. The UGLi is also home to Bert's Café, which opened in February 2008. The café was donated by Bertram Askwith (LSA '31), who is also the donor of the Askwith Media Library.
Taubman Health Sciences Library: Serving the academic health sciences schools, basic and clinical research, bioinformatics and clinical translational science, and the University of Michigan Health System (UMHS), the Taubman Health Sciences Library is one of the largest medical libraries in America with comprehensive collections in all facets of health care and medical research. It also has extensive online collections and is a member of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, a gateway for access to over a thousand medical libraries nationwide. Many rare volumes of significance to the history of medicine have been moved to the Special Collections Research Center, with access by appointment only. These include approximately 6,300 titles dating from 1470 to the early 20th century, consisting primarily of pre-1850 imprints. It includes 82 incunabula, 52 magical medical amulets, as well as medical fugitive sheets, manuscripts, letters, medical cartoons, medical portraits, medical illustrations, and medical artifacts.
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Special Collections Library: This library holds internationally renowned collections of books, serials, manuscripts, posters, playbills, photographs, and original artwork. It is home to some of the most historically significant treasures at U-M.
Art, Architecture, and Engineering Library: The Art, Architecture, and Engineering Library offers access to collections and services supporting art, architecture, design, engineering, and urban planning. and some foreign patents; the Visual Resources Collection supports slide and digital images primarily in architecture and contemporary art.
Askwith Media Library: Askwith Media Library, formerly the Film and Video Library, was renamed and moved to the second floor of the Shapiro Library Building. The Askwith Media Library contains over 25,000 titles, including feature films, documentaries, and instructional programs available for checkout, on-site viewing, or streaming. The basement and fourth floor of Shapiro hold books on astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, natural resources, mathematics, physics, and statistics.
Clark Library: The Clark Library combines maps, government information, and spatial and numeric data services. Stephen S. The Clark Library Government Information Collection serves as a center for government documents. government documents, and is also the a depository for publications of the State of Michigan, government of Canada, United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and European Union. The library's Spatial and Numeric Data Services (SAND) is housed at the Clark Library and on North Campus at SAND North in the Spatial Analysis Lab (room 2207) of the Art and Architecture Building. SAND assists in research, and "locates, acquires, and converts numeric and spatial data sets, especially social science data sets.
Fine Arts Library: The Fine Arts Library, located on the second floor of Tappan Hall (the History of Art building) serves the History of Art department, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Kelsey Museum of Archeology. The Fine Arts Library maintains a collection of print and electronic resources in the history, theory, and criticism of the visual arts, consisting of over 100,000 volumes on painting, drawing, sculpture, graphic arts, decorative arts, architectural history, and photography.
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International Studies Library: The International Studies Library comprises the Near East Division; the Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Division; the South Asia Division; and the Southeast Asia Division. The U-M Library collects materials in over 400 languages.
Museums Library: The Museums Library is located near South Campus in the Research Museums Center. The Museums Library serves curators and researchers in the Museums of Anthropology, Exhibits, Paleontology, Zoology, and the University Herbarium. The Library collections of 130,000+ cataloged volumes focus on taxonomic botany and zoology, behavioral biology, paleontology, and archaeological anthropology.
Papyrology Collection: The Papyrology Collection is one of the most prestigious collections of ancient manuscripts in the world.
Two university libraries are located on the U-M North Campus: the Music Library and the Art, Architecture & Engineering Library (AAEL). The Music Library is located on the third floor of the Earl V. Moore Music Building.
Independent Libraries
Several U-M libraries operate independently of the University Library system:
- Bentley Historical Library
- William L. Clements Library
- Gerald R. Ford Library
- Kresge Business Administration Library at the Ross School of Business
- Law Library at the University of Michigan Law School
William L. There are also several collections that are affiliated with the university, but are not part of the University Library system. Other libraries include the Law School Library, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, the Ronald and Deborah Freedman Library of the Population Studies Center, and the Transportation Research Institute Library. The last library is one of the world's most extensive collections of literature on traffic safety. The only off-campus library in the University of Michigan system is the Biological Station Library. Its collection consists of over 16,000 cataloged volumes and more than 50 paper journals. It specializes in limnology, ornithology, ecology, systematics, taxonomy, and natural history.
Specialized Collections
The University of Michigan Library system boasts a wealth of specialized collections catering to diverse research interests:
History of astronomy and mathematics: This collection includes hundreds of pre-1800 publications, including works by Copernicus, Kepler, and Euclid. The Library owns an original Galileo manuscript, a gift of Tracy W. McGregor.
Early manuscripts: This collection includes over 250 medieval and Renaissance volumes, as well as individual leaves, many of religious topics. Among the most notable is a collection of 20 parchment leaves containing the works of Shenoute of Atripe.
Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive: This collection originated with the donation of the personal culinary history collection of Janice Bluestein Longone and her husband, Chemistry Professor Emeritus, Daniel T. Longone. It "brings together a diverse body of materials on the American culinary experience. Holdings cover the production, promotion, preparation, presentation, consumption, and appreciation of food and drink in America.
Joseph A. Worcester Philippine History Collection: This collection includes a variety of published works, manuscripts, and photographs on the history of the Philippines. The core of the collection is the extensive collection of material donated by Dean Conant Worcester to the university (his alma mater) in 1914.
Near East Division: The Near East Division focuses on North Africa, Southwest Asia, Asia Minor, and Central Asia. As of 2013 the division had 597,507 monograph titles and 1,457 current serial titles.
Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Division: The Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Division focuses on Eastern Europe, Mongolia, modern Greece, and Russia and the post-Soviet states, including Transcaucasia and Central Asia. Notable holdings of the collection include: "Russian revolutionary movements, Russian and East European dissident writings, modern Armenian history and literature, rare books and archives focusing on the Silver Age of Russian literature, Southeast European travel literature, and serial publications of the East European academies." The division has some 600,000 items, including some 427,800 monographs, 3,900 current serials in vernacular languages; 405,000 titles in Western languages, and 16,500 non-print media items, including microform and electronic resources.
Digital Initiatives and Resources
The University of Michigan Library has been at the forefront of digital innovation in libraries, embracing technology to expand access to its collections and enhance research capabilities.
Michigan Digitization Project: In December 2004, the University of Michigan announced a book digitization program in collaboration with Google (known as Michigan Digitization Project), which is both revolutionary and controversial. Books scanned by Google are included in HathiTrust, a digital library created by a partnership of major research institutions.
Digital Library Production Service (DLPS): Since the early 1990s, the University of Michigan Library has been a leader among research libraries in efforts to digitize its vast collections. The Digital Library Production Service (DLPS) of the U-M Library oversees the digitization of Library materials, and the development of online access systems for these digitized materials. In furtherance of this goal, DLPS developed its own digital library software, called Digital Library Extension Service (DLXS), that provides a uniform interface for its digitized items. DLPS is also affiliated with the Text Creation Partnership (TCP) to create searchable, full-text versions of works digitized in the Early English Books Online, Evans Early American Imprints, and the Eighteenth Century Collection Online projects. In December 2004 the University Library and Google announced their plans to digitize the over 7 million print volumes held by the Library. Especially old and fragile items, or items in special collections, will not be handled by Google; these the Library will scan itself. It is estimated that it will take approximately six years for Google to complete the scanning process; without Google, the U-M Library was on pace to have their entire collection scanned in about 1000 years. All costs for the project are borne by Google, and the company has developed special scanning technology to ensure that the books are not damaged during the process. All books that are out of copyright will be available for the public to read online; those still in copyright will be searchable, but only brief excerpts will be available to read. Though the project has faced copyright concerns, it represents a significant step forward in preserving and providing access to scholarly materials.
Scholarly Publishing Office (SPO) / Michigan Publishing: Responding to restricted public funding and the rising costs of print materials, the library has launched significant new ventures that use digital technology to provide cost-effective and permanent alternatives to traditional print publication. Michigan Publishing operates several print-on-demand programs. The University of Michigan Faculty Reprints (FRS) returns out-of-print books written by university faculty back into circulation on an openly accessible and affordable basis, both online and in print. The Scholarly Publishing Office (SPO) was a unit of the University of Michigan Library devoted to developing innovative and economically sustainable publishing and distribution models for scholarly discourse. Its staff, services, and imprints are now part of Michigan Publishing. Created in 2001, the Scholarly Publishing Office provided a suite of publishing services to scholars at U-M and beyond, in order to provide alternatives to commercial academic publishing. In addition to developing cost-effective methods of publication, SPO also helped scholars increase access to their work by making it openly available online, within a trusted and durable digital library environment. Library-based publishing services such as those offered by the Scholarly Publishing Office contribute to a more robust, efficient, and diverse system of scholarly communication. SPO was unique among publishers because of its affiliation with a major university library. Historically, libraries have defined their mission according to the rubrics of collecting, preserving, cataloging, and distributing the fruits of scholarly inquiry. For many years this broadly conceived mission has sufficed; today, the economics of the publishing world have created a situation in which the status quo is impossible to maintain. Library budgets for public universities like the U-M are either cut or stagnant, while the costs of publishing in print form continue to rise. Publishing conglomerates drive subscription rates up, while libraries struggle-and in many case fail-to keep up. Smaller academic publishing houses do not generate sufficient revenue to support themselves, and their institutional subsidies have been slashed. Starting with Philosopher's Imprint, a peer-reviewed journal produced by the University of Michigan Department of Philosophy, SPO published over a dozen journals and provided for-fee hosting for non-profit academic organizations' subscription products. For example, SPO hosted the American Council of Learned Society's ACLS Humanities Ebook Archived 2016-12-21 at the Wayback Machine (now hosted by Michigan Publishing) and the Law Library Microfilm Consortium's LLMC-Digital, a database of legal research materials. SPO began a collaboration with the University of Michigan Press, called the Michigan Digital Publishing Initiative, to explore the possibilities of new publishing partnerships between libraries and traditional, print-based academic presses. SPO actively pursued new and promising partnerships and publication opportunities. For example, it released the online publication of the Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists (BASP), in partnership with the University of Michigan Library's Papyrology Collection.
JSTOR: The University of Michigan was the original home of the JSTOR database, which contains about 750,000 digitized pages from the entire pre-1990 backfile of ten journals of history and economics.
Access and User Services
The University of Michigan Library is committed to providing seamless access to its resources and offering a range of services to support users' research and learning needs.
- Kresge Library Resources: Kresge Library now subscribes to the Analyst Reports product in S&P CapIQ. This product is available to all Ross users using the 'Reports' tab in the S&P CapIQ interface. J.P. Users can save searches and personalize lists of contributors to assist in their research. Report content is searchable by keyword and can be viewed prior to downloading. Multiple reports can be downloaded at once using the Cart feature, or saved to a Binder for downloading at a later time.
- Pitchbook and GlobalData Medical: Pitchbook and GlobalData Medical have both upgraded their login mechanism to work with UM Single Sign-On/IP authentication. Starting today, users will no longer have to provide credentials at either database. Pitchbook is available to all UM Ann Arbor Users.
- Spatial and Numeric Data Services (SAND): The library's Spatial and Numeric Data Services (SAND) is housed at the Clark Library and on North Campus at SAND North in the Spatial Analysis Lab (room 2207) of the Art and Architecture Building. SAND assists in research, and "locates, acquires, and converts numeric and spatial data sets, especially social science data sets.
- Peer Information Consultant (PIC) program: The UGLi also offers a great many services to its students, including Course Reserves, Reference Services, and the Peer Information Consultant (PIC) program, which allows students to get research advice from fellow undergraduates.
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