by Scott Martin, Biological Sciences Librarian, University of Michigan Library
Greetings from the greening woods! It hasn’t been as warm a spring as I’d have liked, but it’s warm enough for the local flora to start getting their green on, which always helps brighten my mood. As more and more people are vaccinated (got my second shot earlier this week!) and the local and statewide case numbers keep dropping, it becomes easier for me to believe that we might actually have turned a corner this time, and that gathering with other people – on campus, at clubs, wherever – could be a reality soon.
As the Library starts to plan for on-campus activities in the fall, we’re also planning for a wind-down of some of the remote services that have been in place for the past year. The HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service, which has provided electronic access to millions of volumes from the U-M Library during the pandemic, is scheduled to end at the beginning of September as our physical collections and spaces become more available. Our ordering services are still expected to experience some delays during this summer’s platform migration, so if you would like the Library to purchase materials (either physical or digital) to support your fall class, please submit your request before May 24.
In the meantime, however, our activities are still remote, including the training opportunities we provide for the U-M community. For example: we’re hosting a series of online workshops by trainers from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) in the first half of June. Click below for more information and registration details; all courses run from 9am-noon EDT.
Mon June 7: NCBI Resources for Genetic Disease Discovery and Clinical Support
Tue June 8: NCBI Genome Resources for Animal Model Organism Research
Mon June 14: An Update on NCBI BLAST and Other Sequence Analysis Tools
Tue June 15: Getting Started with NCBI Data in Python (limited to 50 participants; register by 5/24) Let me know if I can help out with your research, teaching or other library-related needs! My email, Twitter handle and Zoom office hour info can all be found on my library profile page.