Facilities & Equipment

Rooms, Sections, & Offices

Circulation area: Located on the first floor at the Quad Entrance of the Library, the circulation area houses library billing, checking materials out and dropping materials off, reserve materials, picking up requested materials, interlibrary loan pick-up and drop-off, and much more.

Computer Labs: The Library has one computer lab and several computers available outside the lab. There are 10 student computers in the lab, a printer next to the lab, a Smart Board and screen, and one instructor station. The computers are available for general computer use. However, occasionally, classes are scheduled in the lab, and a sign is posted to notify students. Please check by the entrance to the lab for scheduled classes.

Young Adult, Juvenile, and Educational Materials: These materials are in a section near the larger study area. The Educational Materials are geared toward K-12 students and include such things as textbooks in various subjects, manipulatives (games, geoboards, etc.), and other supporting materials.

Exhibit Room: The Library offers exhibit space for students, faculty, staff, and community members. Individuals or groups interested in using this space should contact Sofia Birden for more information about scheduling an exhibit. Please see the Exhibit Area Policy for use guidelines.

The exhibit area is located on the library’s first floor and consists of six walls and one display case. See the layout for the size of the space.

The General Collection: The general collection, also known as the “stacks,” is located in the older part of the library downstairs. We use the Library of Congress (LC) Classification.

Study Areas: There are three study rooms, two downstairs for group work and one upstairs for individual study (up to two people at a time). Upstairs, there are also study carrels and two “Pods” that allow for quiet study. The upstairs area is meant for silent study, while the downstairs is for quiet study. There is also a large open group study area near the circulation desk and Quad Entrance with several tables/chairs. This area allows for normal talking.

Research area: The research area is within the same area as the group study. This area is where the research librarian’s desk is. Nearby are two public computer stations for looking up books and articles, a small reference collection, a printer, and one of two scanners (the second scanner is in the computer lab).

Serials area: Our journals, magazines, and newspapers are against the wall in the group study area near the Circulation desk. The UMFK community may check out the serials for a short time.

Special Collections: The Special Collections room is located on the first floor. Its holdings include serials, books, and primary documents related, with some exceptions, to the Saint John Valley and the University of Maine at Fort Kent.

Equipment for Use

Computers and printers: The Library houses IT computers for research and work applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, presentation software, and more. There are two printers that double as copiers and fax machines. One is in the group study area, and the other is next to the computer lab. For more information on computer availability on campus, visit the Information Technology website.

Microform Readers/Printers: The Microfilm reader is located in the Acadian Archives.

Scanning Stations: There is one overhead scanner in the group study area near the Research desk and one flatbed scanner in the computer lab. The overhead scanner works quite well with documents and books but does not work well for scanning images. The flatbed scanner is the better scanner if you want to scan pictures. The printers are now also able to scan, though they are better for short projects.

Television Cart: There are two Television carts, each located in a room at either end of the library. The carts contain a television, a DVD/VCR player, and remote controls.

Equipment for Check-Out

General: headphones and other general equipment may be checked out at the circulation desk.

Special: Video cameras, digital cameras, headphones with microphones, digital audio recorders, webcams, and laptops may be checked out at the same location as our general equipment. These items are also for educational purposes only. Contact Circulation Staff, Dana Appleby, for more information.

Laptops: A special note about laptops. Laptops are meant for short-term use. There are only a few laptops, and many students want to use them. In addition, some laptops are needed for testing, which is another reason it is vital for them to be returned on time. When working on laptops, save your work to Google Drive or OneDrive. Please do not keep your work on the laptop itself. Doing so will result in the loss of your files. Finally, as with any of our materials, laptops may be recalled at any time.

Other

Keep the library clean: Blake Library staff are very happy to allow food and drink in the library. However, we rely heavily on students being responsible for cleaning after themselves. We very much appreciate students’ continuing efforts to keep the library clean.

Wireless access: Blake Library has 8 APs. The standards level they support is IEEE 802.11ax, also known as Wi-Fi 6. To set up your device for wireless access, Students need to register their device with Tempest or Eduroam. To learn how to do this, use the UMS IT help page found HERE.