As the campus prepares for more in-person learning, teaching and research for the fall semester, the U-M Library is getting ready to fully serve those activities.
In the fall, visitors will see a return to many or most in-person services, expanded availability and hours in specialized facilities and study spaces, more ready access to library-use-only collections, and expanded circulation of the physical collection.
Some guidelines are likely to remain to allow for public health recommendations and the processing of materials that have continued to arrive throughout the pandemic, when library buildings were entirely or mostly off-limits.
Throughout the fall, library officials will reassess and expand access and hours as conditions allow. The U-M Library website will have the most up-to-date information about the status of services and buildings.
Because the library will be circulating the physical collection at near pre-pandemic capacity by fall, it will discontinue the HathiTrust Temporary Access Service at the end of the summer term. Even without this emergency access, HathiTrust holds 17.4 million items, all of them fully searchable, and 6.8 million of them open to view, read or download in full.
Faculty who intend to submit requests for fall course materials should do so as soon as possible. While this is always helpful, more lead time is especially important this year. In mid-June, the library will begin migrating the catalog to a new technology platform — the final stage of a multiyear project to modernize the technology used to manage the collection.
During the migration, which will take up to six weeks, library officials will not be able to initiate the acquisition of materials not currently in the collection.
If a fall course will employ materials that a faculty member wants the library to purchase or license, a request must be submitted by May 24 so library staff can help ensure students have the materials they need.
The library will hold all requests for new materials received during the migration and process them after the transition is complete, prioritizing fall course needs.
Last year, library staff created a new service to help faculty find and acquire appropriate course materials, including open access and digital content. That service will continue for the foreseeable future.
Faculty members are encouraged to visit the Course Materials Support web pages and submit requests as soon as possible.
