University of Michigan-Flint

What I Do

The vision of the Flint Campus of the University of Michigan is “engaging minds, preparing leaders.”  The Thompson Library does its part to instantiate that vision by fulfilling its particular mission: to link people with ideas.  By “people” we mean, in the first place, our students and faculty; secondarily, guests and other academic libraries.  By “ideas”, we mean recorded knowledge, in all formats – print, microform, digital.  By “link”, we mean the array of front-line and support services we offer to connect users to the materials they seek as they pursue their educational objectives.  These “links” are made through: our on-site main and archival collections; our webpage gateway to digital resources; our circulation, reserved-reading, and intra-UM-campuses- and interlibrary-loan services; reference services; research instruction classes; librarian liaison to academic departments; and cataloging, acquisitions, systems, and administrative services.

At a university, students enter a series of interrelated conversations: the immediate conversation in their classrooms, the more extended conversation in their particular major disciplines, but also the “Great Conversation” that is the heritage of recorded knowledge and reflection.  The books on our shelves and the digital packets in our databases represent the many voices that comprise those ongoing conversations.  In that way, by ensuring that our students have access to many voices, we enable and do our part to preserve the academic tradition of free discussion, analysis, debate, and disputation. 

I also serve as Director of the Master of Liberal Studies in American Culture Program, and teach Honors 252.

Curriculum Vitae