Entries by Barbara Kriigel

We received the comment:

There are really not enough outlets. I have difficulty finding spots to study normally and it was nearly impossible during finals. It would help to put more in here for us. Thanks!

Thank you for your comment concerning the availability of electrical outlets in the Mardigian Library building.

Library staff members and I hear frequently from students about the lack of electrical outlets in the building. We recognize that this is a problem for students and we are trying to address it. The lack of electrical outlets for public use in the library is largely a result of the time when the building was designed, the late 1970's -- before anyone ever dreamed that laptop computers would be as common as they are today.

The library's staff and I are seeking ways to address what is clearly a problem. According to a preliminary estimate that we received recently from the university's Facilities Planning department, the existing wiring in the building will permit the installation of up to 45 additional electrical outlets: 30 more outlets on the main floor, 4 on the second floor, 6 on the third floor and 5 on the fourth floor. The estimated cost for this work is approximately $40,500.

I have been in communication with representatives from the Student Government on this issue. I met recently with the Faculty Senate and informed that body that this is an issue confronting the library. I will be preparing a budget proposal to fund the addition of electrical outlets for consideration by the university administration for the next fiscal year.

In the meantime, we have re-arranged furniture on the first floor to take better advantage of existing outlets and will be adding power strips for easier electrical access. We removed equipment from some of the media carrels so they can be used with laptops.

Thank you again for your comment. I hope that this information is helpful to you.

Tim Richards
Director, Mardigian Library

We received the question:

I would like to know if the Library will ever require students to show an ID to study here. Yesterday the noise was excessively loud & most of the students were not UMD students. I know Wayne State requires an ID to enter the library; I think a similar policy would help make the library a better experience for UMD students. Thank you

Thank you for your recent question. Excessive noise is a problem that we experience from time to time. From our perspective, the core issue is not who makes the noise but that excessive noise occurs. Sometimes this noise is created by non-UM-D students, sometimes it is UM-D students who create the noise. We have clear policies, publicly displayed, that discourage excessive noise. We also have procedures for warning -- and removing from the building if necessary -- anyone who makes excessive noise. The essential first step in this process is to alert us to the problem. If you experience another instance of this kind of behavior, I urge you to go to the Circulation Desk and make a complaint. Our staff will confront the person(s); if that does not have the desired effect, our staff will call the University's Public Safety Officers to handle the problem.

We very much appreciate your observation that requiring people to present an ID to enter the building "would help make the library a better experience for UM-D students." Making the library a welcoming place that maintains an environment that is conducive to learning is very important to us.

While we are reluctant to say "never" or "ever," we are not at all certain that requiring students to show IDs to enter the building would create a more welcoming environment to students -- it could have the opposite effect. Indeed, some of us have worked at libraries that employed this practice and we can say without qualification that the practice creates its own problems and has its limitations. One challenge to implementing such a practice involves our reciprocal agreements, which allow UM-D students to check books out from the libraries at other colleges and universities in the region and for their students to use the resources of this library. If all the academic libraries in the area started restricting students, there would be an adverse impact on UM-D students. WSU libraries are open to UM-D students during the day.

Before we decide to take the step of requiring the presentation of a valid student ID to enter the library, we would want to be very thorough in understanding how big the noise problem is, what the source of the problem is, and what options are available to resolve the problem short of requiring presentation of a valid student ID card to enter the library. Incidentally, we do require student IDs for those who wish to enter the library after 10 p.m., when we have 24-hour study during Final Exam time.

We received the comment:

I think the MeL service is on time with their shipping and it helped me out a lot. If it wasn't for this service I would have had a very difficult time searching for another, or the same, source for my project. I will definitely use MeL again.

Thanks, we're really glad you like this service! Hundreds of libraries in Michigan are participating in the MeLCat state-wide library catalog and resource-sharing project. Over 7 million titles are available for you to borrow and it's really easy to find what you need and have it delivered here for your use. And you don't have to do the driving!!

You can see more about MeL and other interlibrary loan services at:

Interlibrary Loan

We received the comment:

When searching the library catalog, if a word is misspelled, the search returns no results. If the system could include a prompt, similar to Google's "Did you mean ..." suggestion, the system would be much more user-friendly for those of us who can't always remember how to spell "Nietzsche" or "Dostoyevsky".

We couldn't agree more, especially since most of us also have problems spelling or typing accurately! Library staff are investigating ways of implementing a product that can provide alternate suggestions when a keyword search returns no results. Our automation vendor is also developing a new interface that will hopefully be more user-friendly and provide options such as this. So help is hopefully on the way.

In the short term, if a keyword search returns no results, you might want to perform the search as a subject search or author search, if applicable. In some cases these searches will help you find correct terms for misspelled words. Please feel free to contact librarians in the Library Research Center if you have more questions about searching: http://library.umd.umich.edu/services/ask.html