Library & Information Services » User Services

Winter Term Library Reserves

Kellam Ayres — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:58:25 +0000

Winter Term is (deep breath!) around the corner, and Library Reserves is beginning to process print, media, and electronic materials for course work. We’re happy to create lists of reserve materials used in past semesters for you, and we can also easily restore old EReserve pages — please let us know if these options will be helpful.

Materials that your students will need to access during the busy first week of term must be received before the holiday break. Please email the Reserves Department with requests and questions: libres@middlebury.edu.

Need a refresher on how to make reserve requests? Check out this quick tutorial. And please don’t hesitate to be in touch!

New Special Collections Summer Hours

Andrew Wentink — Mon, 30 May 2011 21:03:51 +0000

A change in Summer Hours for Special Collections on the Lower Level of the Davis Family Library was approved by the LIS Area Directors at their recent meeting. The following hours will be in effect immediately:

Tuesday, May 31-Thursday, June 2 By Appointment Only

Friday, June 3 Open 1-5 p.m. for Reunion Weekend

Saturday, June 4 Open 10 a.m.-2 p.m. for Reunion Weekend

June 5-19 CLOSED

Monday, June 20-Friday, August19 By Appointment Only

Monday, August 22-Friday, September 2 CLOSED

CLOSED WEEKENDS DURING THE SUMMER

Music Library move pictures

Dan Frostman — Thu, 26 May 2011 19:02:50 +0000

Anyone interested in seeing the progress of the Music Library move can view pictures here.

Are you reading this post via a feed reader? If so, read on…

Barbara Merz — Wed, 25 May 2011 14:27:44 +0000

On Tuesday May 31st we’re going to change the categories on this blog, so if by any chance you’re using a feed of a specific category, that’s going to break. We suggest subscribing to the whole blog for maximum enjoyment! If you’re not a LIS staff member & would like to filter out the more staff related posts, you can subscribe to the new “Middlebury Community Interest” category after May 31st. The other categories will be “LIS Staff Interest”, and “Post for MiddPoints” which will cause the post to be added to the MiddPoints blog too. All the old categories except “The Essentials” will be converted to tags for easy searching.
The LIS Web team developed this new scheme, following recommendations that came out of the open meeting about the future of the LIS Blog (including a call for simplified categories). The AD Team reviewed and approved these changes. We welcome your comments.

Do Macs get viruses? (or “Just say NO to MACDefender”).

Petar Mitrevski — Fri, 20 May 2011 12:30:13 +0000

Viruses on Macs? You don’t say!
The Helpdesk is occasionally confronted with this question: Do Macs get viruses? The short answer is yes, they do. Actually, there are quite a few viruses, worms and trojans that target Macs (see the iAntivirus Threat Database). That’s why we offer antivirus software for Macs: http://go.middlebury.edu/sav. Note that Symantec has been included on faculty/staff computers for several years. It’s also offered to all students (though we might not do a good job advertising that).

What’s MACDefender?
Recently, a new malicious software has been targeting Macs (SANS, Symantec, Cornell). The software is (deceptively) named MACDefender. Strictly speaking, MACDefender is not a virus, it is a trojan but for most people there is purely a semantic difference. It should be noted, however, that a computer trojan, much like its historical counterpart, relies on deception and requires our “help” to infiltrate a computer. Computer viruses and worms on the other side don’t depend, as much, on us humans.

How do you know if your computer has been infected with MACDefender?
Well, at this time, if your computer is infected with MACDefender you may see the symptoms outlined on the Intego antivirus page. However, a better approach would be to update your real Mac antivirus (you have one, right?) Here are the instructions for updating Symantec Antivirus for Mac and running a virus scan. Don’t have Symantec for your Mac? Get it now: http://go.middlebury.edu/sav.

macdefender - fake antivirus

Software folder on Middfiles

Lisa Terrier — Wed, 18 May 2011 16:37:47 +0000

LIS will be improving your access to software that you may want to download this summer. The folder, called “Software” resides on Middfiles and gives you access to printer drivers, licensed software, patches and updates. You will see this evolve into different folders, and access will be given via groups in the network directory system.

Please let me know if you have any questions on this.
Lisa Terrier

Sierra Services Platform Briefing

Janine McDonald — Tue, 17 May 2011 01:44:46 +0000

In the event anyone is interested in registering for a Sierra platform 45-minute briefing on Tuesday, 5/24 or Wednesday, 5/25, the link is below:
(NOTE: the times are listed as Pacific Daylight Time).

Tuesday, May 24

Tuesday, May 24, 4pm (Pacific Daylight Time)
Duration: 45 minutes (includes Q&A) – Registration link

Tuesday, May 24, 6pm (Pacific Daylight Time)
Duration: 45 minutes (includes Q&A) – Registration link

Wednesday, May 25

Wednesday, May 25, 6am (Pacific Daylight Time)
Duration: 45 minutes (includes Q&A) – Registration link

Wednesday, May 25, 8am (Pacific Daylight Time)
Duration: 45 minutes (includes Q&A) – Registration link

Today’s Hours now displaying on LIS websites!

Dan Frostman — Wed, 11 May 2011 14:47:15 +0000

Users can now see today’s hours from the LIS web pages. The “All Hours” link takes users to the full Google Calendar, which has a pull-down menu for the various service points. More locations will be added in the coming days. Special thanks to the LIS Website Team, Carrie, and Ian for making this happen!

DVDs at Davis: A Summer Project

Steven Bertolino — Fri, 06 May 2011 19:29:28 +0000

I’m excited to announce that, in partnership with the Film & Media department, a large majority of the Media Collection DVDs, which have been kept behind the Circulation Desk, will be moving out onto the main floor, and new loan rules will apply to them. These DVDs will be merged with the current Browsing DVDs, located between the New Books and Reference stacks, and will circulate to students and staff for 3 days, and to faculty for 2 weeks. They’ll be housed within new, locked cases, and when you check out the media, instead of having to locate the DVD itself from a shelf behind Circulation, LIS staff will simply unlock the case for you. In other words, yes, now you’ll be able to watch most of the DVDs Middlebury owns outside the library.

Additionally, we expect to have an “oversize” portion of the collection where the original DVD cases (e.g. some box sets, DVDs with irregular-sized booklets) are important for use or study, or can’t be easily transferred to the locking cases. This oversize section will be located behind the Circulation Desk, but the materials will circulate under the new loan rules and can leave the building.

Lastly, a smaller restricted collection of rare and/or expensive DVDs will continue to be kept behind Circulation and the old loan rules (students & staff 4 hours in-house, faculty 3 days) will still apply.

This new arrangement will not affect how Reserves works for faculty or students. When a professor asks to have a DVD put on Reserves for a course, LIS staff will retrieve the media from the open stacks/oversize/restricted, and it will be kept on Reserves, in the usual place behind Circulation and with the usual Reserves loan rules. At the end of the semester, when the media comes off of Reserves, it will be returned to wherever it came. (Note: videotapes, which have already been moved from behind Circ to open stacks on the main floor behind Government Documents, will work the same way.) However, since a more widely circulating media collection will result in more media being used away from the library and off campus, we encourage faculty to plan ahead for your Reserves needs, including film screenings.

This is a huge project for LIS, involving handling all the DVDs, and repackaging and reprocessing most of them. Not only most of the Media Collection DVDs, but also all of the Browsing DVDs will have to be repackaged. All “MCTR” DVDs, no matter where they will eventually be housed, will be reprocessed using the Library of Congress classification system, which we use currently for all books and some DVDs. The finished open stacks collection will be sorted by call number, not the current alphabetical arrangement used for Browsing. We plan to start work on all this in early June, and hope to be finished before Fall semester classes begin.

Returning items to the Music Library

Dan Frostman — Wed, 04 May 2011 19:27:18 +0000

As you may or may not be aware, the Music Library will close its doors at 5 pm on May 17th. LIS would appreciate it if all Music Library items were returned before that time. After the 17th, Music Library materials can be returned to the Davis Family Library.