What's new at the Healey Library?

Welcome Back Students and Faculty! We have been busy over the summer preparing for your arrival and are excited to have you back in the library. 

This is a very exciting year for all who need something from the library, from a coffee or a smoothie, or help in finding the best resources we have for you.  Keep your eyes open and come right in to ask your questions by land, phone, or virtually. You will have a blast! -Daniel A. Ortiz, University Librarian

Group and graduate study rooms are available on the 8th floor. Sign up at the circulation desk (2nd floor main lobby) to use one of the 4 group study rooms on a first come first served basis. The 6 graduate study rooms have been assigned to the 6 colleges for their students’ use. The 6th floor is reserved for quiet study.   

                               

The Media Service Desk has reopened on the 3rd floor. Laptops, headphones and DVD remote controls  can be borrowed from here. The Laptop Loan Program has implemented a $4.00 charge in order to maintain the equipment. Laptops are loaned for four hours at a time.  PDAs are also available her for Nursing students only.

Interlibrary Loan, Virtual Catalog and all other books on hold have been moved to the 3rd floor. Please pick up all requests at the Media Service Desk and return these items to Circulation Service Desk on the 2nd floor.

All computers in the library building are now set to the Pharos pay to print system. Students receive the first 200 pages a semester for free, after that they pay $.10 per page. A UMB student ID is required to access the print queue. In addition,  all users need a library barcode is to connect to the Internet. A guest password will be available at the circulation desk.

Marilyn Day, Supervisor of the Curriculum Resource Center (CRC) (5th floor), has been adding CRC book titles (organized by theme) to the  LibraryThing catalog. The catalog currently contains over 200 titles. LibraryThing allows users to view book covers, reviews, subjects and more. Marilyn is delighted to now share her space with Joanne Riley, the director of Massachusetts Studies Project (MSP). Look for future posts about the CRC and MSP.

We have added several new Databases to the collection and are especially excited to have 360Search. 360Search allows users to search many of the library's databases, including the catalog, at the same time. Another addition is Literature Reference Center which has a broad spectrum of information on thousands of authors and their works across literary disciplines and timeframes.  LexisNexis has a completely redesigned interface.

The Healey Library Course Resource Hub now has over 300 webpages designed for UMB courses. The webpages are designed to connect students with library resources for their coursework. The Reference department has spent much of the summer contacting faculty and creating the these pages for the fall semester. Spencer DiScala, professor of History, has already used the wikisite for five of his classes. Prof DiScala aid of the site, "Greater knowledge of the resources available through wikis designed for specific courses would go a long way to increasing students' skills in research and in making new tools available to everyone." We encourage all faculty to contact George Hart to customize their class presence at the library site.