“A teaching library with a student-centered information literacy program.”
Dean: Adriene Lim
Associate Dean: Frank Lepkowski
Assistant Dean: Brandon Bernier
Director, Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine Library: Nancy Bulgarelli
Professor Emeriti: William Cramer, Indra M. David, Suzanne O. Frankie, George L. Gardiner, Robert G. Gaylor, Janet A.Krompart, Mildred H. Merz, Richard L. Pettengill, Ann M. Pogany
Associate professors: Kristine S. Condic, Elizabeth Kraemer, Shawn Lombardo
Assistant professors: Dominique Daniel, Katie Greer, Mariela Gunn, Linda L. Hildebrand, F. Ring, Julia Rodriguez, Anne Switzer
Managers: Eric Condic, Technical Services and Integrated Systems; Patricia Clark, Access Services & Document Delivery
Library Facilities
Located in the center of campus, the Kresge Library houses the main library and the Medical Library. Collections include books, journals, reference works, government documents, musical scores, and recordings, as well as a wireless network and computer workstations to access an array of digital resources. The library features seating for individual study, rooms for group work, meeting rooms, audiovisual rooms, and rooms with adaptive equipment for students with disabilities. The Café features a full range of coffee drinks, teas, and tasty and nutritious foods for on-the-go students.
The Information Commons offers a combination of PC and Mac desktop workstations, areas for wireless laptop use, breakout rooms, with presentation computers and equipment, and areas with modular furniture to facilitate a flexible learning environment for research, sharing, and creation of knowledge by students. For Library instructional purposes, there are also two networked computer labs with 25 workstations in each. Laptop computers are available for checkout to students at the Circulation Desk.
In addition to its own operations and resources, the Library hosts the Writing Center, the University Technology Services Help Desk, and e-Learning and Instructional Support.
Library Collections
The Libraries’ collections contain over 50,000 e-books, 75,000 journal titles in electronic and print formats, over 800,000 print volumes, multimedia resources, and more.The Libraries subscribe to over 130 online databases and now feature Library OneSearch, a discovery tool that enables users to search through the libraries’ print and electronic holdings simultaneously with a single search, and to obtain one set of integrated search results for their information needs. Last year patrons conducted 1.4 million searches in library databases and retrieved over a million full-text articles from our electronic collections.
The library’s Web site and online catalog serve as gateways to well over a hundred specialized and general research databases, and tens of thousands of full-text electronic journals and e-books, covering a wide range of disciplines and research areas. In addition to electronic reference resources, the Matilda R. Wilson Reference Collection includes atlases, bibliographies, dictionaries, encyclopedias, indexes, yearbooks, and other print reference materials.
Special collections include the Hicks Collection of Early Books by and about women, the Springer Collection of Lincolniana, the Gaylor Collection of GLBT Literature, the James Collection of Books on Folklore and Witchcraft, the China Gift Collection, and the Bingham Collection of Historical Children’s Literature.
The University Archives is a repository of materials relating to the history of Oakland University, and includes copies of all dissertations written at OU, as well as a substantial number of faculty authored monographs.
Library Services
Web site: library.oakland.edu
Phone: (248) 370-4426
Send an e-mail message to a librarian: ref@oakland.edu
Reference assistance and research consultations
Librarians provide reference and research assistance in-person at the Reference Desk, by telephone, by e-mail, and via instant messaging. Librarians also offer individualized and customized research consultation sessions by appointment. These in-depth, one-to-one sessions are designed to help students identify and use resources pertinent to their research topics.
Library instruction
As information literacy specialists, librarians provide extensive instruction for students on using information resources, constructing effective research strategies, and evaluating information. These instruction sessions are a core component of everyWRT 160course. Librarians also provide customized, course-related sessions in the disciplines, as well as workshops on special topics.
Circulation and course reserve services
At the Circulation Desk, undergraduate students may borrow books for a period of three weeks, with unlimited renewals unless another borrower has requested the materials. Students may also borrow materials that have been placed on course reserve by their professors. An increasing number of reserve items are available in electronic format on the Web.
Interlibrary loan service
Students may request books and articles not owned by the Kresge Library through the library’s interlibrary loan service and through MelCat, a statewide resource sharing system. Requests can be made in person, or through the forms available on the Web.