Friday, April 25, 2008

What I found on the Way to something Else: U-M's (Michigan) EJournal site

It all started with watching the streaming vid of the Dalai Lama from the University Michigan's website. His Holiness was in Ann Arbor April 20th to celebrate Earth Day. The Dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment introduced the UM President Mary Kay Coleman who then introduced the Dalai Lama.

On the way to finding the School of Natural Resources and Environment, I came across the UM Libraries (19 in all) website and looked for ideas on how to re-design our own ERAU-Prescott Hazy Library website.

From the UM Harlan Hatcher graduate library website, I found the eJournals link where one can choose from a list of dozens of topic areas (http://www.lib.umich.edu/ejournals/) And from there, I clicked on Natural Resources and Environment -- whoah!

653 titles appear with journal titles and websites ranging from Acta Oecoligica to Agronomy Journal and onto Country Living Gardener, Endangered Species Bulletin, Human Ecology, Journal of Animal Science, North American Journal of Aquaculture, Plant Diseases and USDA Bulletins. I'm in information heaven here!

Friday, April 4, 2008

WOW! the New Hazy Library & Learning Center

It's week 2 in the new Library. The official Opening Day of Embry Riddle's new Christine & Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Library and Learning Center went off exactly as planned with balloons and snacks galore, flowers on the desk and two writing pads on both downstairs and upstairs floors for users to write their comments.

Patrons commented most on the SPACE, window views of the mountains and main campus, the 'blue' lit staircase, the utter newness and fresh smell of a 35,000 sq. foot facility devoted to Books and magazines, DVDs (main floor) and the HUGE Information Commons with 40 computers upstairs (adding tot the 40 desktops in the downstairs Instruction Room), as well as the state-of-the-art Media Center with production suites for video editing.


For now, we're still in the Honeymoon stage, wandering around and figuring out how everything works. With so much space to manage, it will likely take about 6 months to get truly acclimated, but we have much to do meanwhile. New Library CDs informing new students about the services offered here in the library, fresh signage pointing to the new spaces and how to monitor all this space!

More insights about the new library later as we approach May's official Dedication for the new library (May 3, 2008).