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Home > Mardigian Library News
Entries from October 2007
Thursday, October 18. 2007
Periodically, the library conducts fire and tornado drills. Why do we do this? Primarily, there are two reasons.
1. In an emergency, one is less likely to go into shock or a state of panic if one has rehearsed what to do. Our goal is to make sure that everyone in our building knows what to do in case of emergency.
2. We want to make sure that mechanical systems, such as sirens and doors, and communication between library staff and Public Safety are working properly.
Take every alarm seriously and treat it as an actual emergency!
Wednesday, October 3. 2007
ERes, the library's electronic reserves system, will be decommissioned on May 31, 2008. ERes has served the campus for nearly a decade. No new account requests have been accepted since December 31, 2006. We encourage faculty members who are still using ERes to move their course materials to CTools, VLT, or Blackboard (School of Management).
These newer courseware programs are better equipped to handle the diverse needs of the classroom and are supported in the major academic units of the campus. They are undergoing continual development and provide support for electronic reserves and much more. Library staff has been, and will continue to be, working with each of the schools to make the transition as smooth as possible.
During the 2006-2007 academic year, our students, faculty, and staff received more than 3,500 items using the MeLCat service, a 53% increase over the previous academic year and triple that of the 2004-2005 academic year. The ease of use, the quick receipt of materials, and the growing number of participating libraries may help explain this dramatic increase in requests.
MeLCat, short for Michigan eLibrary Catalog, is a statewide resource sharing service that enables our users to request books online from participating libraries and receive their requests within 3 to 5 business days. The service is easy to use and items arrive much faster than from traditional ILL services.
The Mardigian Library has been a member of MeLCat since its pilot phase in 2002 when only 15 libraries participated. Today, more than 160 libraries participate in MeLCat, including 12 of the state’s 15 public universities and many community colleges and private colleges. Local participating libraries include Wayne State, Henry Ford Community College, Oakland University, and Washtenaw Community College as well as a number of public libraries. Visit http://elibrary.mel.org/screens/participating.html to see a complete list of participating libraries.
The library encourages users to select MeLCat before filling out the traditional ILL forms when trying to locate books or audiovisual materials that our library does not own. To use MeLCat, start by searching for the item in our catalog, http://wizard.umd.umich.edu/. If the title is not owned or is not available, click on the MeLCat button that appears on the right side of the screen. On the MeLCat website, click “Get this for me" and enter your name and 8 digit UMID number. If needed items are not available at our library or via MeLCat, users can fill out the traditional ILL forms.
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