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U of M library working to secure historical preservation equipment with Giving Blueday campaign

University of Michigan community gives back during Giving Blueday
University of Michigan community gives back during Giving Blueday 02:01

University of Michigan students, staff and alumni are making a difference Wednesday by giving back through Giving Blueday.

Donations already surpassed $1.5 million 16 hours into the daylong event, and they raised even more funds by the time the clock struck midnight on Thursday.

From Michigan athletics to academics, all the way down to student organizations, donations from Giving Blueday make the Michigan Difference.

These dollars go to helping students pursue their passions outside the classroom.

"We make time for things that make us happy. As students, we're all here for school, but I also think that it's incredibly important to balance that out with things that make us happy," said U-M Junior Maelisa Watkins.

For Watkins, that's the swing dancing group, and for her classmate Angela Wu, it's the school's robotic submarine team.

For folks working with Michigan libraries, Wednesday's Giving Blueday donations are going directly to funding the purchase of a machine that will help them preserve rare and fragile books and documents for generations to come.

"We have a lot of special things like scrolls and manuscripts that don't fit into a standard-sized box, so the machine would actually cut a template in half the time or less than what we would do to make something like this," said U-M Library Preservation Services Director Marieka Kaye.

Kaye says this machine can make hundreds of these archive boxes each day. They typically have to wait a few months for an outside vendor to deliver the same amount.

Giving Blueday donations were already more than halfway to U-M Library's $30,000 goal by the early afternoon.

"This machine is going to work really hard and also save us from using vendors anymore," Kaye said.

Since Giving Blueday started back in 2014, the University of Michigan has raised nearly $50 million from more than 100,000 individual donations.

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