Students and the whole Middlebury community are invited to the Davis Family Library to make Tibetan Peace Flags that will decorate the building for the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. This is a chance to share your message of peace, thanksgiving and good will with the Dalai Lama and our whole community. Come and write your wishes, thoughts and prayers, or express your feelings by drawing or decorating your flag.

Tables with flag-making supplies will be set up in the library lobby from Oct. 1-14.  Flags will be on display in the library throughout October.

So, once you do that, you might wonder: what’s with this “library quick search” thing?

The library quick search allows you to easily look for various types of materials by selecting the different tabs above the search box.

Specifically, you can think of the different tabs this way:

Summon is the “one-stop shopping” tab.  It searches 90+% of all library resources, including the items we physically own, online journal articles, and digital collections.  Totally lost and about to start weeping?  Start here!

Midcat+ provides a way to search the materials physically held by the library, as well as selected online resources such as eBooks.  This tab also lets you search NExpress, the combined catalog and holdings of 7 New England college libraries, and which you can use to borrow things Middlebury doesn’t own.  If you are looking for a specific book, movie, or CD that you think Middlebury or one of our partner libraries might own, try using this search.

Journals A-Z and Databases A-Z provide a way to look up specific journal or database titles, and see exactly which issues we provide access to.  You can also use a keyword to find all journals or databases containing a specific word in the title or description, e.g. “jazz” or “biology.”

Reserves is a easy way to view course reserves by class or professor name.

Videos searches our DVD and VHS holdings.  Check out the “browse videos by genre” function if you’re looking for, say, film noir or romantic comedies.

And, if you get stuck, there’s always a librarian around to help you figure things out.  Welcome to Middlebury!

In a few cases, you’ll still need MIDCAT and other research databases. The “Catalogs” tab takes you to MIDCAT, NExpress and WorldCat (and it now has a link to ILLiad for interlibrary loan, too!). We’ve also added a “Databases A-Z” tab to make it easier to get directly to resources like JSTOR and PsycINFO. But remember, Summon searches almost everything so it’ll usually be the best place to start.

Read more about Summon here. You’ll find more help documents in Summon, and we’ll be creating a tutorial for it soon. Please send us feedback here, or look for the “Feedback” link in the Summon interface. If feedback is about a particular search result, use the “report an error” link in the “Get it @ Midd” results window.

• the largest collection of circulating newspapers in North America, including international, U.S. colonial titles, U.S. ethnic titles, and Civilian Conservation Corps camp newspapers/newsletters
• 38,000 foreign journals rarely held in U.S. libraries
• 800,000 foreign dissertations
• major microform and paper collections from Africa, Latin America, Middle East, Europe, Asia, Southeast Asia, and other locations
• a total collection of almost 5,000,000 rarely held books, journals, pamphlets, newspapers, and primary source materials

Membership in CRL provides Middlebury library patrons with access to the entire CRL collection via InterLibrary Loan (ILL).  Loan periods, and the amount of material that can be borrowed at any time, are considerably more generous than traditional ILL.  Some CRL materials can be digitized on demand and can be provided via e-mail or other electronic delivery.

How do I use CRL?

CRL materials are requested the same way as any other traditional ILL request: through Middlebury’s ILL department: go\ill (on-campus) or go.middlebury.edu\ill (off-campus).   If you know ahead of time that you need to borrow a large quantity of material, or you need to borrow something for an extended period of time, please indicate this clearly in the “Notes” field when you fill in the ILL request form.

You also have the option of searching the CRL catalog directly at: http://catalog.crl.edu/ If you locate something that’s of interest, leave a note in the ILL form indicating that you found the item in the CRL catalog.  This will save time by alerting ILL staff to route these requests directly to CRL.

If you have any questions about this service, please feel free to contact one of our librarians, or contact Terry Simpkins, Director of Research and Collection Services, at 802-443-5045.  If you have questions specifically about ILL matters, you can contact Rachel Manning at 802-443-5498.

We are excited to be able to provide you with access to this extraordinary collection, and hope you find it to be a valuable resource for your teaching and research.

Terry Simpkins

Director of Research & Collection Services

We’ve created one test for each of the four areas of the LIS Website. Each test has a different set of five questions. A test should only take 1-2 minutes to complete. Thanks for your help!

LIS Homepage

Library Homepage

Helpdesk Homepage

Curricular Technology Homepage

The average cost to borrow an item through ILL is about $30.00.  When we include the costs of Mailing and ILL fees, requesting a CD through ILL was at times costing more than purchasing the CDs. Other options for acquiring CDs still include:

Borrow from NExpress: Middlebury will continue to both borrow and lend CDs via NExpress.  There are negligible shipping costs for CD borrowing and lending for NExpress requests because all NExpress items are shipped together.  Middlebury patrons may search the NExpress Catalog at http://go/nexpress.  You can specifically search for CDs and other sound recordings by selecting “Sound Recordings” from the “View Entire Collection” drop down box on the NExpress search page.

Request a purchase: If a CD is not available via NExpress, the CD title can be submitted for purchase to the Music Library, by using the on-line form:   http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/lib/libcollections/libraries/musiclib/suggestapurchase/node/39001

While the Music Library is unable to purchase everything, it is our hope to be able to increase patron driven purchasing as a way to help ease this reduction in ILL services.

Any requests for CDs submitted to ILL after February 1^st will be forwarded to Music for purchase consideration and the ILL request will be cancelled.

For questions contact mdyill@middlebury.edu

If you know something that library users would want to know too, please post it to the LIS blog and add the “Library Spotlight” tag to your post.  The neat thing is that you’ll be getting the word out to LIS staff and library users all at once.

Use the “Library Spotlight” tag for information such as:

• new library resources, collections, web sites, search techniques, go shortcuts, etc.
• hidden library treasures and answers to common questions
• changes in library hours, services and facilities

Thank you in advance!  The more “Library Spotlight” posts there are, the better the library site will be.

http://midd-blog.com/2009/11/21/midd-kid-ft-jay-z/

[some explicit lyrics]