Merrill Library Newsletter

Merrill Library Newsletter –May 7, 2024

In This Issue:

New Catalog Coming Soon: (Faculty) Take Note of Action Items
Open Scholarship Librarian Joins the Fogler/Merrill Library Team
Featured Resource: Chronicle of Higher Education

New Catalog Coming Soon: (Faculty) Take Note of Action Items

We are excited to announce the first significant update to the University of Maine System Libraries (UMSL) catalog and search experience since 1988, set to debut in mid-June 2024. This will modernize how you interact with library resources, offering a more intuitive and efficient platform for discovering information.

Before June 7, 2024, all Library patrons should review these action items related to their library accounts’ saved searches and history. Faculty should also preview these action items to learn how this will impact their persistent links on BrightSpace or other Course Management Systems.

Faculty who are planning to use any new material for Course Reserves or Brightspace in a summer 2024 course should submit their lists by Monday, May 13, 2024. This is because the library will temporarily stop purchasing new materials during the upcoming transition to the new library catalog.

Instruction materials for updating Sierra permalinks coming soon.

For more information and updates, please visit the

UMSL ILS Transition Guide.

Welcome Fogler’s First Open Scholarship Librarian!

Casey Koons has been appointed Fogler's first Open Scholarship Librarian and will begin his tenure on May 1, 2024. Koons will be Fogler's liaison for Open Access publishing, copyright, and Open Educational Resources (OER); and provide strategic leadership for our institutional repository, Digital Commons, and digital scholarship projects. He will be part of our newly created Open Scholarship unit within the Special Collections & Projects department. Casey comes to UMaine from SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, where he was the Assistant Librarian for Scholarly Communication. Casey holds a MLIS from Syracuse University, an M.A. in Comparative Religion from Miami University, and was a Graduate Fellow in Religion at Syracuse University. Casey is originally from the mid coast Maine area.

Featured Resource: Chronicle of Higher Education.

The Chronicle of Higher Education is updated daily and provides news, information, and job listings for people in academe. The Chronicle's Web site features the text from the current print edition, posted every Monday morning; commentary and essays from the weekly magazine, The Chronicle Review; daily news and advice columns; thousands of current job listings; a searchable archive of every issue published since September 1989; slide shows, podcasts, and video; discussion forums; data from the annual Almanac of Higher Education and other reports; and career-building tools such as online CV management, salary databases, and more.

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