Tag Archives: Research & Instruction

The Vermont Collection Update

Submitted by Lynn Saunders

Last week I had the opportunity to participate in a focus group gathered to review some websites created by the Center for Rural Studies. As a Federal Depository we are affiliated with the Center for Rural Studies as a State Data affiliate. The first site we reviewed was Vermont Indicators Online. This site is very user friendly and a great resource for Census information for Vermonters. The Center has compiled much used Census information in an easy to use format. You can check it out at http://maps.vcgi.org/indicators/.

Next we reviewed their Vermont Housing Data site. Here they have compiled state and federal housing statistics. You can even check out what you might be able to afford for a house. You can find this housing website at http://www.housingdata.org/.

Our final website review was the Vermont Planning Information Center. Again CSR (Center for Rural Studies) has compiled a great deal of information for local and state planners. There are manuals, guides and laws online. The site is user friendly and provides a comprehensive list of resources. This planning site can be found at: http://www.vpic.info/ .

The focus groups all agreed that the websites were user friendly, provided a great deal of information, and were very useful. The focus group was small but diverse.

Brown Bag Web Tools Series

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Submitted by Elin Waagen

Last week we held the 3rd in a series of Brown Bag Web 2.0 sessions.
If you missed it – be sure to put the next one on your calendar!
(Let us know if you want to share a tool you are using)

Many thanks to our presenters!
Here is summary of fun – and productive – tools LIS staff are currently using:
Jeff uses iGoogle to keep multiple resources in one easy to access place
Adam F uses Twitter to log his daily activity – and extracts a list when its time to write his PFDP
Mike uses FeedDemon for PC to easily track sites he is following
Adam F uses NetNewsWire – the Mac version – as his reader
Elin uses CommonCraft as a site for easy explanations of web 2.0 tools
Mary uses GoodReads to build her personal reading list and to see and share what others are reading

Mike uses ChaCha to settle bar bets
Mike uses RememberTheMilk to track everything he has to do
Mike uses Jott as a reminder service
Adam D uses GrandCentral to personalize and control his phone
Bryan uses Delicious to share and store his bookmarks
Joe A uses Facebook to remember birthdays and to connect with family

So…not only do you get to have fun, you can also win a prize!
The following people have won coffee mugs (with coffee card included):Steve Bertolino, Pij Slater, and Mike Lynch
Others have won silly toy prizes – for non-web fun: Rachel Manning, Mary Backus, Jean Simmons, Judy Watts, Mack Roark, Alex Chapin, Adam Franco and Carrie Macfarlane.

Do you have a fun web tool that you are using for work or play? Have you discovered a new tool still in beta?
Interested in sharing it with others in LIS?
Want to present? Presentations are casual and short – no lengthy preparation required.
Just want to share an idea that we can present for you?
If so, please contact Elin or Bryan.

Save the date and time!
The next Tasty Web Tidbits mealtime session is scheduled for Tuesday 11/25 at 6 pm in Lib 105. The idea is to get together, have some fun and share the web tools we are using. Presentations are about 10 minutes long max. Each session has 3 – 4 presenters with time for spur of the moment sharing. There is a prize drawing at each session. Attendance at all sessions increases the chance to win the grand prize in December.
Please bring your own bag meal – and enjoy a fun meal-time hour with co-workers.
Hope you can join us!

Statistics from Library Systems

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Submitted by Mike Lynch

How many times per hour does Midcat get searched, on average? 340
What’s the busiest hour of the day for the catalog? 3:00 p.m.
How many times did an EBSCO search refer our users to Academic OneFile for the full-text of the article last fiscal year? 378
How many times did users go through WebBridge to get to Project Muse last year? 284
Where did Mike get all these numbers from anyway? From statistics that Barbara has been compiling from various sources.
Can I see them for myself? Sure. Just go to O:\ORGS\LIS\LISstaff\ILS III Millennium User Materials\OPAC statistics

Libraryfind – reminder

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Submitted by Mike Lynch

Just a friendly reminder to please help us test our implementation of Libraryfind. As mentioned in a post on August 30th, we are experimenting with this open source application which allows search across multiple resources.

It’s not ready for public consumption just yet, but we are making it available for testing by LIS staff. You’ll see five choices: Digital & Print Undergraduate Theses, Images & Multimedia, Middlebury College Abernethy Collections, Library Catalogs and TEST Collection Group. The first choice searches all of the NITLE Dspace thesis collections, as well as the Special Collections thesis database on Concerto. The second searches 12 different collections, some in ContentDM and some in Concerto. The third searches the Abernethy Collections on ContentDM. Library Catalogs currently searches Midcat only. We are testing various journal indexes in the TEST Collection Group, although currently none of those work.

Barbara is trying to identify and fix these problems, and Bryan Carson is working on making the interface more Middlebury blue.

Highlight of the Fall NEMLA conference

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Submitted by Joy Pile

On Friday Oct. 17, I attended the Fall conference of NEMLA (New England Chapter of the Music Library Association) which was held at Bennington College. Among the sessions given, was one that focused on a couple of projects the library helped to sponsor as part of a class. The most innovative of the two projects was one which resulted in the creation of a Lib2.0 book recommendation site – not unlike the one Mary Backus demonstrated in the brown bag session – with physical objects designed to highlight a book in the stacks. For more information, and photos of this very creative project go to <http://bookmarks.bennington.edu>.

50,000 digitized maps available

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Submitted by Hans Raum

Government Information Resources

More than 50,000 historical digitized maps are now available online at http://infoweb.newsbank.com/?db=SSMAP. The original maps are part of the U. S. Congressional Serial Set and they include a broad range of themes and cover from the early 1800’s to about the 1950’s. Early maps were created by expeditions that surveyed the American west, Alaska, and other parts of the world, as well as early surveys of cities, harbors and other geographic features for most of the country. Among the maps of local interest are a 1904 soil survey of Addison County and maps of Silver Lake, Lake Dunmore, and Otter Creek. Other maps provide detail of specific battles in the Civil War and some early city plans. Although the maps may be of greatest interest to geography majors, they may also be useful in supporting student research in geology, American history, and ethnic studies, among other disciplines.

One-stop shopping

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Submitted by Joe Antonioli

Information Technology at Tufts University has created an integrated suite of Web 2.0 technologies, communication tools for “for teaching, learning, research, and co-curricular activities.” This is a great example of access, support and marketing all in on space.

http://spark.uit.tufts.edu

The site gives the user a gateway to each technology. It also includes help documentation, examples and links to suggested uses. For instance, on the wiki page-

Wikis – Suggested Uses

A wiki is simply a web page or site that is fully editable from a browser using a very simple “mark-up” language. Its strength is that it allows small groups to add, revise, and edit web content, so it is a natural tool for most collaborative writing activities. Like a web site, it allows for non-linear linking of individual wiki pages. Whenever a wiki page is edited, a new version of the page is created with the old version being archived for the site editors’ reference.

Demonstrate the evolution of thought processes through the different versions of a wiki page.

Create a collaborative knowledge base that can be added to over time and across courses.

Helps small groups of students develop a project, collect ideas, papers, timelines, documents, datasets, and study results into a collective digital space.

Assists with small group problem-solving and brainstorming.

What would Middlebury’s version of this service look like?

Staff Information session on U. S. Serial Set & Federal statistical sources

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Submitted by Hans Raum

There will be a staff information session on Wednesday morning, October 15 at 9 am in room 105 on the U. S. Congressional Serial Set, the American State Papers and the top ten federal statistical websites. Anyone who is interested in the topics is welcome to attend.