Around the Libraries

The University of Maryland Libraries is excited to announce the acquisition of Ford’s Theatre records. The Ford’s Theatre records will be archived with Special Collections in Performing Arts (SCPA) and located in the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library.

Jordan Sly, Head, Humanities and Social Science Librarians, and School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Librarian for German, Italian, and French, has been elected as the Chair-Elect of the University Senate for the 2023 - 2024 term after which he will become Chair of the Senate and then Past Chair serving for a total of three years in these positions.  

The University of Maryland Libraries have signed a new agreement extending access to Elsevier ScienceDirect through December 2024. Through ScienceDirect, users can search for peer-reviewed literature, including journals, books, conference proceedings, and other Elsevier-published research.

“It’s okay to be different. You are special and important just because of who you are.” from "It’s Okay to be Different" by Todd Parr Celebrating differences  was a key theme throughout the Libraries’ first-ever Storytime in Drag event on Monday, April 24. Students, faculty, and staff gathered in McKeldin Library to celebrate the university’s recognition of Pride Month with performers D’Manda Martini and Bella Naughty, who read from banned children’s books (see list below) as well as other books featuring LGBTQ+ affirming themes.

The University of Maryland Libraries are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2023 Library Awards for Undergraduate Research. This year’s awardees are Emily Fox, Cecelia Hough, and Evan Richardson all in the class of 2023 and majoring in History. Elizabeth Early, also in the class of 2023 and a History major, is the recipient of the Libraries’ award for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) research.

Celebrate 25 years of Maryland Day with the University of Maryland Libraries on Saturday, April 29, 2023 from 10am - 4pm. Join us in Hornbake Library and the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library for the following events. 

The UMD Libraries is pleased to announce that Lae’l Hughes-Watkins has been named the inaugural Associate Director for Engagement, Inclusion, and Reparative Archiving in Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA). Hughes-Watkins assumes this new leadership role after serving for over three years as University Archivist. (A search to fill the now-vacant archivist role will be conducted soon.)

The archives of Mass Media & Culture (MMC) in Special Collections and University Archives is pleased to announce that 17 episodes of the groundbreaking program PowerPoint are now available for streaming in UMD Libraries Digital Collections.

To provide our campus community with more flexible, multi-use workspaces, McKeldin Library is reducing the number of public desktop computers on the first and second floors by about 35 percent. This change is based on usage data showing that, on average, no more than 50 percent of the desktop computers are in use at any given time. Libraries’ staff often see library visitors use these workspaces with their own personal laptops already, demonstrating a need for more space that can accommodate library users’ own devices and other materials.

The Libraries are proud to play an instrumental role in the 2022-23 interdisciplinary curriculum program “Decolonizing Education to Meet the Demand of Climate Change: resilient Adaptive Climate Technology (reACT) Testbed Lab.” Over the course of one year, students from across seven departments, from Education to Architecture, will work collaboratively on an architecture and engineering project that’s guided by indigenous knowledge in order to live more sustainably in the face of climate change.