The USM Libraries are dedicated to providing high quality informational services to the USM community. Our collections focus on supporting the curricular mission of the university while also providing significant resources to support faculty research. We also provide instructional support around information literacy and specialized information sources.
The best way to request a book (whether physical or electronic) be added to the collection is to fill out our Suggest Material to Add form. Please be aware that our budget for book purchases is generally expended by the end of April each year and plan accordingly. You should also be aware that in selecting items for the collection we prioritize items that support your teaching and the curriculum.
Yes! Please feel free to suggest materials other than books you would like to see added to the collection by filling out our Suggest Material to Add form with your request. Materials will be purchased based on budget, availability, selection priorities, and other relevant factors.
The USM libraries support electronic and physical reserves.
Physical reserves are items from our collections or a faculty member's personal book. Physical reserves are held on any one of three campus libraries and may be checked out by students for in Library use and generally for two hours at a time.
You may search for materials already on reserve in LibrarySearch. Alternatively, you may call circulation: (207) 780-4270.
Fill out a copy of the Reserves Information & Form and e-mail it to usm.reserves@maine.edu.
Alternatively, you may deliver it to:
University of Southern Maine
If you want a personal copy of a textbook or other books placed on Reserve for your students, you can drop off or send the books via inter-campus mail or regular mail to the Library.
Be sure to include a note with:
Please e-mail usm.reserves@maine.edu with the following information. Funding will determine whether we can purchase new books.
Electronic reserves (e-reserves) provide the ability to add many types of resources; including: digital media, articles, book chapters, web resources, streaming videos, and recorded musical performances. and other such media. It also relieves faculty of the burden of determining for themselves what copyright permissions may be needed. Our electronic reserves are integrated with UMS's learning management system BrightSpace (BS).
Please e-mail usm.reserves@maine.edu with:
Please e-mail usm.reserves@maine.edu with:
Please be advised we can not place copies of complete print textbooks in e-reserves due to copyright restrictions.
Complete this video request form.
Our instructional team has the ability to provide many types of instructional support. See our dedicated Library instruction program page for details.
Our three specialized collections (Osher Map Library, the Franco American collection, and Special Collections) also have instructional staff that would love to help engage your students with primary and specialized sources. Their contact information is available on the page linked above.
Please use our request form.
Yes! Use our request form and just let us know it is online and we will be in touch to work out the details.
Unfortunately not at this time. We plan on offering asynchronous tutorials again in the future as time and staffing allow.
One straightforward way is to enter the title of the item you are looking to find in LibrarySearch.
Another way is to search by book or journal title in LibrarySearch.
We have access to over 96,990 journals. You can search by title in Serial Solutions. Serial Solutions will give you the date ranges held in each database providing access to the journal in question.
Another way to search for journals is to search by journal title in LibrarySearch
In our A-to-Z listing of databases there is a subject area filter that will produce a list of the database identified by a research librarian as having value in supporting inquiry in the subject area in question.
You can find information about each specialized collection on their websites:
You can find our digitized archival resources in our instance of Digital Commons. You can also search across other institutions Digital Commons instances as well.
If the materials are at another library in the state as an available (the Request Status in the MaineCat record is AVAILABLE) physical artifact (not an e-book or dataset), you can use the request feature of MaineCat.
If the materials are not held by a library in the state, you can submit an Inter-Library Loan (ILL) request, and we will do our best to get it for you. If you are new to ILL, please see our ILL page to get started.
There is no definitive way to answer this, as different article information systems use different methods on different sets of articles, therefore these systems report different numbers and are incapable of counting beyond the limits of their input. That said, Google Scholar can give some indication as to citation count. Feel free to ask a research librarian.
USM Libraries supports Zotero for citation management. Individual librarians may be comfortable assisting with other citation management software.
One may contact the IT helpdesk for help with technology-related issues you’re experiencing with MaineStreet, BrightSpace, Google Suite, Kaltura, and Zoom. They can also help with problems with university-issued computers, network/internet, and password issues:
(207) 780-4029 or usm-helpdesk@maine.edu.
The Center for Technology Enhanced Learning (CTEL) provides both Self-paced training for BrightSpace as well as a companion guidance document. BrightSpace also has its own official documentation for instructors.
One may also contact CTEL directly: (207) 780-5072 or ctelhelp@maine.edu
One may contact CTEL for assistance teaching with BrightSpace, developing online teaching skills, or finding innovative ways to assess student performance:
(207) 780-5072 or ctelhelp@maine.edu