Librarians are now available at the Research Desk. Please bring your research questions to us! Does the library have any movies in Spanish? How should I cite this web page? I’m writing a paper on [insert your topic here]… We know what to do!

Hours:
Monday-Wednesday: 11-5 and 7-10 pm
Thursday: 11-5 pm
Friday: 11-4 pm
Sunday: 1-5 and 7-10 pm

At any time you can always Ask a Librarian! (go/askus)

Erastus Hibbard Phelps Collection

The winning bid on the Archive of Civil War paymaster Erastus Hibbard Phelps, Middlebury Class of 1861, was made at auction by Andy Wentink, Curator of Special Collections & Archives. The archive was one among nearly 350 lots of American History, including Civil War, materials offered by Cowan’s Auctions in Cincinnati, OH, last Friday morning, December 2. The Phelps Archive comprises 334 letters, 4 diaries (3 from Civil War years), 2 bound volumes including a photo album containing portraits of graduates of the Middlebury Class of 1861, many of which are inscribed to Phelps. The archive also includes two photos of Phelps previous to his years at Middlebury, his paymaster sidearm (a Colt 1851 Navy 36 caliber pistol), what is believed to be his sheepskin winter jacket worn on duty, and a leather documents trunk carried during his service.

Andy also made the winning bid on another Civil War archive, 54 Letters of 2nd Lieut. Ephraim L. Hackett, Wisconsin 1st Light Artillery. Born in Maine in 1837, Ephraim L. Hackett was living in Baraboo, Wisconsin, in August 1861, when he enlisted as a Sergeant in the 1st Independent Battery, Wisconsin Light Artillery. Small in number and mobile, the Battery recruited barely over 100 men before being sent into the field in Kentucky that Fall, then went on to fight up and down the Mississippi Valley until the end of the war.

These two important Civil War collections significantly enhance Middlebury’s already impressive Civil War era archival holdings including the Aldace Walker (Middlebury Class of 1862) Letters, the Calvin Parker Letters, the Civil War Archive of Professor Kit Wilson, and nearly 100 Civil War era letters from individual writers.

The purchase of the Phelps and Hackett archives was made possible through the generous partial funding from the Friends of the Davis Family Library, the Middlebury College Museum of Art, the Julian W. Abernethy Fund, and the Davis Family Library.

MEMSO includes digitized versions of original texts held at the National Archives in London and includes the papers of King Edward VI and Queens Mary and Elizabeth I, among many others.

To access MEMSO, visit the library’s New and Trial Resources or visit MEMSO directly, through October 20th.

Send feedback via email (or by Royal Decree, if the mood strikes you) to Rebekah Irwin.

ANNUAL SPECIAL COLLECTIONS OPEN HOUSE

Special Collections, Davis Family Library, Lower Level

 FACULTY  & STAFF ARE INVITED TO REVIEW OUR MOST RECENT ACQUISITIONS OF PRIMARY SOURCE MATERIALS INCLUDING

RARE BOOKS & FIRST EDITIONS; MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS; JOURNALS; DIARIES; ANTIQUE MAPS & PRINTS; EPHEMERA; ETC. 

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS MATERIALS ARE SELECTED FOR THEIR RELEVANCE TO COURSES BEING TAUGHT ACROSS THE CURRICULUM AS WELL AS FOR FACULTY RESEARCH

SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE ACQUISITIONS ARE WELCOME

TOURS OF THE CLOSED STACKS WILL BE AVAILABLE

PLEASE STOP IN ANYTIME

10:00 AM-5:00 PM

TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY,THURSDAY

SEPTEMBER 6, 7, & 8, 2011

WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU

Among the study’s findings:

• Google reigns supreme among resources most commonly used (JSTOR ranks 2nd), but…
• Students often do not know how to search effectively using Google.
• Students do not view librarians as potential research partners
• Faculty have an important role to play in “brokering” interactions between students and librarians.
• Faculty also tend to view the library primarily as a purchasing agent, while librarians view the library as partners in the teaching & research processes.
• Both librarians and faculty overestimate the research skills that students possess, assuming that these “digital natives” will have already developed sophisticated searching techniques by the time they arrive at college

What should we as librarians (and library/technology staff) be doing to overcome these problems?

In the DSpace repository, you’ll also find previous years’ submissions, back to 2007-2008, which is when we began experiment with “ETDs” (“electronic theses & dissertations”).

Submissions are tracked and uploaded, along with metadata (including title, author, summary, subject headings), by LIS cataloging staff — this year, Sue Driscoll. (In the past, other staff who have helped include Michael Warner, Marlena Evans, and Richard Jenkins.)

Take a look to find intriguing research in a wide-range of topics and academic areas.

On a related note: print copies of Honors theses, some master’s theses, and DML theses (Doctor of Modern Languages) continue to be stored in the College Archives, housed in the Library’s Special Collections area. Titles and authors can be found here. Contact Andy Wentink or Danielle Rougeau to view these items.

The Middlebury campus community can now find out what’s happening in IT with access to research, news analysis and trends from Gartner Inc.

Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company. Gartner delivers technology-related insight that helps clients to make the right decisions, every day. From CIOs and senior IT leaders in corporations and government agencies, to business leaders in high-tech and telecom enterprises and professional services firms, to technology investors, Gartner is a valuable partner to 60,000 clients in 11,000 distinct organizations. Founded in 1979, Gartner is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.A., and has 4,400 associates, including 1,200 research analysts and consultants, and clients in 85 countries.

Students can benefit by using Gartner to find research for assignments, learn where IT is headed and how it will shape our world, discover an area of interest, or even get ideas on careers. Gartner research enriches the educational experience by providing timely, objective real-world examples and content.

Faculty & Staff can benefit by using Gartner to stay current on IT industry trends. Gartner provides insight to the application of technology to real-world problems and enables understanding of the long-term trends and issues that current and future IT decision makers will face.

Gartner’s research is licensed for use and is accessible at no cost to our students, faculty and staff. To access Gartner, you’ll need to first authenticate using your Middlebury username and password, if you haven’t already.

Access Gartner Research

(Bookmark go/gartner)

Our library will be receiving the print version of the report in about 2-3 weeks through the Federal Depository Library Program.

• 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