Updated: Sep 27th, 2023

GIS Day @ University of Idaho is a free event that brings together scholars, students, professionals, businesses, and the public to discuss geospatial technologies and demonstrate their many uses. This year’s theme is “GeoAI: Where Artificial and Location Intelligence Meet”, featuring keynote speaker Dr. Wenwen Li (ASU) to explore this vital topic. The sessions will take place on Wed, Nov 15th, 2023 as a hybrid event hosted at the Clearwater / Whitewater room of the Idaho Student Union Building and streaming live via Zoom. Please visit the GIS Day @ University of Idaho page for schedule and registration.

We are currently inviting submissions for short talk presentations highlighting your GIS/geospatial related work, project, organization, or research. Short talks are ten minutes max and will be presented in one of three time slots, morning session 10:20am - 11:00am, afternoon session one 1:00pm - 1:40pm, or afternoon session two 2:45pm - 3:30pm. Presenters have the option to speak in person at the Clearwater room or via Zoom. The call for presentations will be open until Friday, October 27 at 11:59pm (PST). Please submit your talk using our CFP submission form.

Updated: Sep 1st, 2023

The U of I Library has entered into a new Read and Publish agreement with Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). This means that in addition to accessing the complete contents of the ACM Digital Library, U of I researchers will now enjoy free open access publishing in eligible ACM publications.

Visit our Transformative Publishing Agreements page to learn more.

Updated: Jan 13th, 2023

The Library and Wiley publishing have restored online access to over 1,300 academic journals lost in 2020 when budget cuts necessitated cancellations. The multi-year contract includes access from 1997 to present for Wiley’s full portfolio of journals. The investment is an important step toward the university’s goal of reaching R1 research classification and does not require significant additional funding for the collections budget.

All new Wiley content is available now and can be accessed through the Library’s catalog. For more information, please contact Ben Hunter, Dean of University Libraries, at bhunter@uidaho.edu.

Updated: Sep 2nd, 2022

The U of I Library received two $250,000 National Leadership Grants this month from the Institute for Museum and Library Services. The awards will support further development of two software projects: JournalMap, a scientific literature search engine that uses environmental context to find papers that share a similar context; and CollectionBuilder, a static web framework used around the world to build interactive digital exhibits.

Updated: Aug 23rd, 2022

The U of I Library Data Hub is a new dedicated space providing support in the areas of geographic information systems, data sciences, data analysis and visualization, and research data management. Located in the Library’s Map Room (First Floor, Rm 107), the Data Hub features specialized equipment, staff, and collaborative space available to all U of I patrons.

The Data Hub is staffed by librarians Monday through Friday ready to answer questions, talk through ideas, and connect you with data resources. Visit in person, or try the online chat available on the Data Hub page.

Collaborative work areas with large displays are available for use and consultations, as well as powerful desktop computer workstations.

Stop in to check out the new Data Hub space, and bring your data!

Updated: Jul 13th, 2022

In 2015 Lumen Learning visited Idaho campuses to help people adopt OER for the classroom. However, Lumen recently sold the majority of their community maintained OER to Course Hero, redirecting the links to the course content without warning. This may negatively impact some U of I faculty who created or use OER that was hosted on Lumen’s platform.

If you have been impacted by this issue or encounter links unexpectedly redirecting to Course Hero, please contact Open Education Librarian Marco Seiferle-Valencia (marcosv@uidaho.edu). We may be able to migrate the OER to the Library’s Pressbooks instance or find other solutions.

Updated: Jun 13th, 2022

Deep behind the scenes, the library’s online service platform has migrated to an updated version, Primo VE, providing better integration for our digital systems and resources. For most users there should be no change in your experience using our catalog.

However, a lot of links have changed!

The catalog’s domain has changed from “alliance-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com” to “alliance-uidaho.primo.exlibrisgroup.com”, and a number of link parameters are different. All links on the library’s website are updated. Please update your bookmarks and permalinks.

If you encounter issues or discover broken links, please don’t hesitate to contact us via chat or libref@uidaho.edu!

Updated: Mar 20th, 2022

Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) is a way of providing digital access to books that are currently available only in a physical format to increase accessibility of course texts to online and distance students. By creating a digital surrogate of physical items, we can “loan legally acquired physical materials in a digital format under controlled conditions”.

The library has been piloting CDL this spring and will continue to offer this option through our Reserves services in the future. Please check our Reserves How To for more information.

Updated: Jan 13th, 2022

The University of Idaho Library and Elsevier publishing have reached an agreement to bring back access to over 2300 academic journals, effective immediately. This five-year agreement restores access to all content lost at the end of 2019 when budget cuts necessitated significant cancellations. Additionally, this new contract includes open access provisions that secure a discount on article processing charges for U of I authors who wish to make their work open access.

This investment in our researchers and our students is an important step toward the university’s goal of reaching R1 research classification, and does so without requiring additional funding for the Library’s collections budget.

All content can be found by searching the Library’s catalog. For more information, please contact Ben Hunter, Dean of University Libraries, at bhunter@uidaho.edu.

Updated: Jan 10th, 2022

Our renewal policy has been updated to better ensure equal opportunity to use the library’s physical items for the entire U of I community:

• Checked out items may be renewed twice upon request, then must be physically returned to the Circulation Desk to be checked in.
• If the item is not otherwise requested or recalled, then it may be checked out again.

Updated: Oct 22nd, 2021

The library will no longer collect late fees or fines for items in our general collection as part of our commitment to equitable access to information and student affordability.

Some items in the library, such as print Course Reserves or U of I Multimedia equipment, are exceptions to this policy and will continue to accrue late fees. In addition, the library will continue assessing lost item fees to patrons.

See Borrowing Policies for more information.