January 02, 2008

Library to Open at 8 a.m. Monday-Friday, Beginning on January 7, 2008

Beginning Monday, January 7, 2008, you will be able to come into the Thompson Library, use the computers, study, check out materials, and get Course Reserves an hour earlier. The Thompson Library will open its doors at 8 a.m. Monday through Friday.

Reference service will continue to begin at 9 a.m.

Posted by pgstreby at 12:15 PM | Comments (0)

November 28, 2007

Extended Library Hours, December 11-16

Need a place to study for exams? Want a computer lab for your class projects? Come to the Thompson Library and stay late! From Tuesday, December 11 through Sunday, December 16, the Thompson Library will have extended hours:

Tuesday, December 119 a.m. - 11 p.m.
Wednesday, December 129 a.m. - 11 p.m.
Thursday, December 139 a.m. - 11 p.m.
Friday, December 149 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Saturday, December 1511 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Sunday, December 161 p.m. - 11 p.m.

Posted by pgstreby at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)

November 15, 2007

In Memoriam - Jack Thompson

Dr. Jack Thompson, who died recently in Naples, Florida, was one of the great benefactors of the Frances Willson Thompson Library, which was named in honor of his mother. He was born in Flint in 1918, and was a prominent and civic-minded member of the community.

We are ever grateful for the role he played in making the Thompson Library what it is today, and we will miss Dr. Thompson's visits here when he was in town.

The Flint Journal ran a nice article about Dr. Thompson on September 20:


The generosity of Dr. Jack W. Thompson and his family through the decades has been so profound and pervasive that their names are an integral part of the Flint landscape.
When it came to giving, Thompson, who died Sept. 9, and his late wife, Virginia, concentrated their resources in some of the very best Flint has to offer. The long list notably includes the University of Michigan-Flint, the Flint Institute of Arts and the Flint Institute of Music, all of which have helped to sustain Flint as a quality city during its most difficult years.

It seemed whatever the couple took personal delight in, they wanted to share with others, and did so by reaching out with their financial resources. Thus as they became avid and accomplished pottery artists under the tutelage of the FIA, so they returned the favor in the form of sizable donations through the years, even after they moved away in retirement..

As learning, culture and writing were among the driving forces in their lives, so the family supported UM-Flint in a multi-generational pattern. UM-Flint's Frances Willson Thompson Library is named in honor of Dr. Thompson's late mother, as is the university's Critical Issues Forum, which brings celebrity intellectuals to Flint yearly.

When Dr. Thompson retired from medical practice in the specialty of obstetrics, the couple relocated to Florida, free to indulge in their love of birding and nature. Typically, they extended their support to relevant organizations.

Even though many institutions bear the Thompson name, those who knew him well remember him as much more than a benefactor willing to share some of his wealth. He is equally remembered for his civility and kindness, which is the great part of his immense legacy, without which his financial generosity would not have been possible.

R.I.P.

Posted by pgstreby at 10:30 AM | Comments (0)

November 01, 2007

Remote Access Downtime (10-15 Minutes) Late Thursday or Early Friday

The Thompson Library's EZProxy system, which gives you access to journals and databases from off campus, will be upgraded some time between 11:30 p.m. on Thursday, November 1 and 6:00 a.m. on Friday, November 2, 2007. There will be brief downtime for licensed databases, but this should be 10-15 minutes.

The upgrade is expected to fix many of the problems you may have noticed in accessing databases and journals from off campus. Once the new version of EZProxy is installed, remote access should be easier.

Please contact me if you have any remote access problems after 6:00 a.m. on Friday.


    Paul Streby
    Collection Development Librarian & Webmaster
    pgstreby@umflint.edu

Posted by pgstreby at 09:11 AM | Comments (0)

September 18, 2007

New Look for the Thompson Library Homepage

Looks different, eh? As you may know, the entire campus is migrating to a new, common system for its websites. The Thompson Library is in the midst of this process. (And as library webmaster, I'm up to my eyeballs in it!) Because the Thompson Library has over 800 web pages and files to migrate, it's a long process. The new look to the homepage and a few other pages isn't even the finished product; although the finished product will look almost identical to this, it will be on a different server.

Another change: the Thompson Library's homepage can be found at www.umflint.edu/library. The old address will continue to work through the Fall term, and other pages will keep the old "lib.umflint.edu" URL until the migration is completed. When the final migration is done (probably in October or November), please update your library bookmarks.

If you have any questions or notice any problems, please let me know.

Paul Streby
Collection Development Librarian & Webmaster
pgstreby@umflint.edu
762-3405

Posted by pgstreby at 09:19 AM | Comments (0)

March 19, 2007

CINAHL and SPORTDiscus Now Easier to Use

We are pleased to announce that using the Thompson Library’s CINAHL and SPORTDiscus products has just become easier. Until recently, the Thompson Library had separate subscriptions to CINAHL Plus with Full Text and its supplementary database CINAHL Select, as well as SPORTDiscus with Full Text and its supplement SPORTDiscus Select. It was possible to search each database and its supplement simultaneously, but with some loss of flexibility in search techniques.

EBSCO, the publisher of these databases, has now integrated the content of CINAHL Select into CINAHL Plus with Full Text, and the content of SPORTDiscus Select into SPORTDiscus with Full Text. You will now be able to access the content of each set of databases searching a single resource. I have removed the links to CINAHL Select and SPORTDiscus Select from the library’s website.

If you have any questions about the transition, please contact Paul Streby, the Thompson Library webmaster.

Posted by pgstreby at 04:03 PM | Comments (0)

January 18, 2007

New Workstations, New Wireless Network

The 25 ITS workstations on the second floor of the library have been a big hit ever since they were installed. Now, thanks to the technology fee, 50 additional workstations were installed over Christmas Break and are ready to use. You can now find ITS computers on all three floors of the Thompson Library.

And don't forget that the new wireless network in UCEN and the Library is operational. Wireless users in these buildings will see the new wireless network name (or SSID) of “UMF_BASIC” that is now being broadcast. Just select it and you will be automatically connected. If you don't see the broadcasted name, manually configure your wireless device to connect to “UMF_BASIC."

If you run into problems, help is available during normal business hours in the ITS helpdesk in 207 Murchie.

Posted by pgstreby at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)

January 16, 2007

New Librarian at the Thompson Library

The faculty and staff at the Thompson Library are pleased to have Mickey Doyle as our newest librarian. You may know him already - he has been working here for almost a year on a temporary basis - but he is now a full-time, permanent member of our team.

Mickey is no stranger to our library. If you've been here a few years, you may remember him from the circulation desk when he was a UM-Flint student (B.S., Biology), before he headed to Boston to get his M.S. in Library & Information Science at Simmons College.

As Reference & Outreach Librarian, he will help library users at the reference desk, work on innovating the delivery of library resources, information, and services, and collaborate with faculty in assessing the campus community's library needs, among other things.

Mickey's office is 313 Thompson Library (in the Gov Docs office). He can also be reached at (810) 424-5439 or at doylemd@umflint.edu

Posted by pgstreby at 12:35 PM | Comments (0)

January 10, 2007

The Reference Books Are Back!

Google has digitized most of the Thompson Library's reference collection, and sent the books back. They will be returned to the shelves as soon as possible.

Posted by pgstreby at 01:52 PM | Comments (0)

November 28, 2006

Reference Collection to be Digitized

On Friday, December 1, 2006, the Thompson Library will be sending selected, generally lesser-used or non-circulating portions of its collection to have the materials digitized by Google. These volumes will be off our shelves from that date until January 10, 2007. While we believe that inconveniences will be minimal, we have made arrangements with the University Library in Ann Arbor to provide reference and interlibrary loan backup to our own services in those areas.

Specifically, we plan to send a large number of bound reference collection materials, plus some older print abstracts/indexes. In addition, as Google processing capacity for this shipment permits, we will send volumes in Library of Congress classifications “A” (general works), “S” (agriculture), “T” (technology), “U” and “V” (military sciences), and “Z” (bibliography). The materials we will be sending represent about 3% of the Thompson Library’s print collection. For future digitization shipments – none of which have yet been scheduled - we will have considerably more lead time and will provide you with more notice.

If in the remaining weeks of the term you are working on projects that will require access to materials from the library’s print reference collection or from the classifications above, please contact our reference service and collection management librarian, Paul Streby (pgstreby@umflint.edu), so that we can make arrangements to meet your needs.

We are delighted to participate in this project. When it is completed users will be able to search the full-text of the seven-million-plus print volumes of the three-campus University of Michigan library system. We will effectively be opening up to you books that have hitherto been all too closed.

Bob Houbeck
Director, Frances Willson Thompson Library

Posted by pgstreby at 03:42 PM | Comments (0)

October 24, 2006

Course Reserves Now Easier to Access

Getting into Course Reserves just got easier! Effective immediately, logging into Course Reserves from off campus will go via the Thompson Library's EZProxy, in which you will use your uniqname and Flint/LAN password (instead of the uniqname/Kerberos password). And if you're on campus, you won't have to login at all. Go to http://lib.umflint.edu/proxy.html for more information about remote access.

Please make sure to enter Course Reserves via UM-Flint's catalog. (If you are in Ann Arbor's catalog, you will have to use a Kerberos login.) Make sure you access Mirlyn and all other library resources via the Thompson Library's homepage (http://lib.umflint.edu).

You will still need to login to Mirlyn with your uniqname and Kerberos password to use My Account or to use the "Get This" feature of Mirlyn to order books from Ann Arbor.

Posted by pgstreby at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)

January 20, 2006

Library doings to be blogged

We're blogging our news now!

Yes, buoys and gulls, it's all the news that's fit to download.

Posted by pgstreby at 03:02 PM | Comments (7)