Around the Libraries

The University of Maryland Libraries is grateful for the generous commitment of Sonya E. Shooshan, MLS ’95, to establish the Library Student Workforce Endowed Operating Fund through the University of Maryland College Park Foundation, Inc. With this new commitment of $50,000, the endowed fund will provide operating support to subsidize the cost of employing, training, and mentoring student assistants employed by the University of Maryland Libraries.

As previously announced, the University of Maryland Libraries will move to a new library search platform on May 23, 2024.

The University of Maryland Libraries’ Special Collections in Mass Media & Culture (MMC) is proud to announce the addition of the papers of the late journalist Ann Corrick to its growing collection of material on women in broadcasting. Ann Corrick, whose voice is one of the only female correspondents in the Group W (Westinghouse) tape archives, led a remarkable career in the mid-20th century when women were rarely permitted to participate in the male-dominated fields of broadcasting and journalism.

Celina McDonald, UMD Libraries’ Government Information and Criminology Librarian, has been awarded the 2024 Bernadine Abbott Hoduski Founders Award for Federal Government Information by The Government Documents Round Table (GODORT) of the American Library Association for her outstanding work in the field of government documents librarianship. McDonald has been an integral part of UMD Libraries and our role as a Federal Depository Library since she started in 2012.

The Do Good Institute, in partnership with the Office of the Provost, has announced the inaugural recipients of the Provost’s Do Good Innovator Award. The award recognizes excellence by members of the campus community who create, nurture, expand and amplify social impact through education, programs, and research, both in and outside the classroom.

This spring, UMD Libraries along with the 17 libraries across the University System of Maryland and Affiliated Institutions (USMAI) will be implementing a new integrated library system (ILS) and searching/discovery service that will go live on May 23, 2024. UMD Libraries will migrate to the Alma and Primo systems, after having been on the Aleph system for over 20 years. Both of these systems are created by Ex Libris®, part of Clarivate.

James Spring, Library Services Unit Manager in McKeldin Library, has been named a recipient of UMD’s inaugural MVP Impact Award alongside 17 staff members from units and departments across campus. The MVP Impact Award recognizes staff members who, over the past year, have demonstrated a Fearlessly Forward attitude of excellence, outstanding service to the university and their colleagues, and a commitment to improving their workplace. Spring and fellow recipients were honored at a reception hosted by university leadership and each received a $1,000 cash award.

Thirteen student teams from the Gemstone Honors Program have begun to meet with Faculty Librarians to develop research projects on subjects ranging across the academic spectrum. Projects this year include  research on how to track and mitigate the Lionfish Invasion of the North Atlantic, how to improve systems to generalize the production of medicines targeting cancer and how socioeconomic status impacts the early diagnosis of children with autism.

University of Maryland faculty and instructors can now incorporate asynchronous information literacy lessons right into their courses with UMD Libraries' new Information Literacy Toolkit. Each year, UMD Libraries’ Teaching and Learning Services provides nearly 200 in-person information literacy instruction sessions to students taking English 101. Now even more students can benefit from this instruction even if faculty can’t fit an in-person library session into their course schedule.

The University of Maryland Libraries has been named a recipient of the Library Excellence in Access and Diversity (LEAD) Award from Insight Into Diversity magazine. The LEAD Award honors academic libraries that encourage and support diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) across their campuses in areas including research, technology, accessibility, exhibitions and community outreach.