Tags » Library Spotlight

Middlebury College named in grant to convert rare and historic audio collections

January 18, 2013 by Rebekah Irwin

Helen Hartness Flanders

Middlebury College’s Library & Information Services (LIS) will participate in a federal grant rewarded to the Northeast Document Conservation Center to digitize wax cylinder recordings in the Flanders Ballad Collection, one of the nation’s great archival collections of New England folksong, folklore, and balladry.

Working in partnership with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the grant will use IRENE/3-D, a system that uses digital imaging to retrieve sound from historical recordings made on discs and wax cylinders that might otherwise be unplayable. IRENE/3-D was used at the Library of Congress in 2012 to extract sound from discs produced by Alexander Graham Bell whose contents hadn’t been heard since they were made about 125 years ago.

Wax cylinders, Middlebury’s Special Collections & College Archives

Middlebury College will make available over 200 wax cylinders and more than 1,000 records from the Helen Hartness Flanders Ballad Collection. This new technology will make it possible to capture sound even from broken and cracked cylinders and records, making it possible to play ballads not heard for over 80 years.

Along with Middlebury College, The Woody Guthrie Archives and The Carnegie Hall Archives will make historical records available to the project.

Learn more

The Library of Congress Blog post on IRENE/3D

Playback: 130-Year-Old Sounds Revealed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Press Release for the NEDCC Grant Project

About Middlebury College – Helen Hartness Flanders Collection

About Carnegie Hall Archives Collections

About the Woody Guthrie Archives

Tags: Facebook, Flanders, Library Spotlight, Special Collections

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House of Commons Parliamentary Papers {trial access}

January 16, 2013 by Rebekah Irwin

Categories: LIS Staff Interest

Until February 15 the Middlebury College Libraries has trial access to Proquest’s House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (HCPP), a full-text searchable database with the working documents of government for all areas of social, political, economic, and foreign policy from the 18th century to the 21st.

House of Commons at Westminster 1808 (Wikimedia Commons)

Visit our New & Trial Resources page or search the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (HCPP) here.

Please share your comments with Rebekah Irwin or your subject liaison.

Tags: electronic collections, library collections, Library Spotlight, trials FY 2012, trials FY 2013

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Trial Access: Factiva.com, Vogue Archive, ProQuest History Vault: Struggle for Women’s Rights, 1880–1990

January 9, 2013 by Lisa McLaughlin

Categories: LIS Staff Interest

Until February 6 we have access to the following:

Factiva.com

Factiva.com from Dow Jones is a business and general reference resource that includes information in the areas of business, current events, communications, technology, foreign policy, and more. For the trial, when you are on the FACTIVA site, go up to the first tab “Search” and choose “Search Builder”.

Vogue Archive

The Vogue Archive is a comprehensive collection of American Vogue issues from its inception in 1892 to the present. Every issue has been reproduced in high-resolution color and is searchable by designer, brand name and garment type.

ProQuest History Vault: Struggle for Women’s Rights, 1880–1990: Organizational Records

This collection follows the growth of the women’s rights movement in America from the campaign for women’s suffrage to the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment and beyond. The archive includes the National Woman’s Party Papers (1913-1971), League of Women Voters collection (1918-1974), and documents about the Women’s Action Alliance (1971-1996).

Tags: library collections, Library Spotlight, trials FY 2013

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National Child Traumatic Stress Network

December 17, 2012 by Hans Raum

Categories: Middlebury Community Interest

Children who survived the mass shooting in Connecticut last Friday may be traumatized by the event and a federally funded online resource, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network , may provide helpful information to parents, caregivers and others who might be concerned about the long-term implications for children who survived the tragic event and similar events elsewhere.

Tags: government information resources, Library Spotlight

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Winter is Coming…. (ILL services in December)

November 28, 2012 by Rachel Manning

Categories: LIS Staff Interest, Middlebury Community Interest

And with winter comes the massive shipping rush of late December. Due to the increased risk of losses (and the lack of open libraries willing to send things) the Interlibrary Loan Department limits ordering and shipping during this time.

If you need anything before winter break request it now! Interlibrary loan requests submitted to ILLiad after Dec. 15th will be ordered in early January.

ILLiad article requests will continue to be filled by RapidILL through Dec. 21st, but must have a valid ISSN and year to be processed a as Rapid request.

For loan materials use NExpress: (http://go/NExpress). NExpress will stay open during break. Requests placed in NExpress go straight to the Lending Library for processing. Loans ordered from NExpress over break should arrive in early January.

Tags: ILL, interlibrary loan, Library Spotlight, NExpress, Winter

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Trial access to Oxford Handbooks Online through December

November 27, 2012 by Rebekah Irwin

Categories: LIS Staff Interest

Until December 26 we have access to all of Oxford’s fourteen handbooks in the Oxford Handbooks Online (OHO) collection. Middlebury currently has access to only three OHO collections: Philosophy, Religion, and Political Science.

Get started with a video tutorial or browse and search OHO.

Find OHO and other New & Trial Resources here (go/trials).

Email Rebekah Irwin or your library liaison with comments.

Tags: library collections, Library Spotlight, trials FY 2013

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The slow rise of ebooks (by the numbers)

November 27, 2012 by Rebekah Irwin

Categories: LIS Staff Interest

The Library took note in May 2011 when Amazon.com announced that its customers were purchasing “more Kindle books than all print books – hardcover and paperback – combined.” Though we’re certainly not yet debating the idea of a bookless library at Middlebury, some number crunching over a 14 month time period seems to show that Middlebury faculty, students, and librarians are beginning to favor ebooks over print too:

A 14 Month Snapshot of Library Requests (Sept. 1, 2011-Nov. 1, 2012)

1,339 faculty, students, & librarians requested books

Overall 35% preferred a print book

Overall 65% preferred an ebook

Of the 211 students requests 45% preferred a print book and 55% preferred ebooks

Of the 432 librarian requests 33% preferred a print book and 67% preferred ebooks

Out of 696 faculty requests 34% preferred a print book and 66% preferred ebooks