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!

Recently, several people have had issues uploading files to Drupal using Firefox. What happens is that, when you use Firefox to download a file, like a PDF, the server you download it from tells Firefox what type of file you’re downloading. Firefox then associates that file type with the file extension. A server might tell you that a PDF is the file type “application/x-download” instead of “application/pdf” and from then on Firefox will think that all PDFs are “application/x-download”s. This causes problems when you then try to upload a PDF to our site and your browser tells our server than you’re sending us a “application/x-download”, which we don’t want you to upload.

To resolve this, you need to delete a file called “mimeTypes.rdf” from your Firefox profile folder. See this guide to locating your profile folder. You only need to do this if you start experiencing this issue.

Drupal

• There are now named anchors above every node on the site. If you have a page with a bunch of nodes, you can link to a specific one by adding #node-XXXXXX to the URL where XXXXXX is the node ID, usually a six-digit number that is in the URL when you’re editing the node.
• The Google Calendar content type now supports multiple calendars and will let you select from a drop down list to choose which calendar you want to view. Items in the month display now line wrap to show you the full title. These changes were done to help support adding Library hours to our website.
• A meta description is now automatically created for every news article on the site so that when you link to a news article on Facebook the description of the link will be taken from the beginning text of the article.
• We’ve replaced the ShareThis link at the bottom of our news articles with large buttons that look nicer. This also corrects an issue where people visiting our site using Firefox 3.5 were not able to load news articles. We encourage people to upgrade to the latest version of their browsers for best support.

Course Hub

• If a course site is empty, the description from Banner is now displayed on the front page. (suggested by Shel)
• The list of updates is now styled to be more constrained table-layout — along the lines of a Twitter feed or a Facebook wall. The most common feedback we received from faculty about the Course Hub was that the update list was “messy looking”. This styling change is a big improvement on that front.

GO

• A fix so it’s now not possible to make a code with the same name as an existing alias.

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.

New compact shelving was installed in the SE corner of the lower level, and all of the books in the “stacks” (aka general collection shelves) were shifted toward Z.   Therefor, if you’re used to finding your favorite PQ books in a specific spot, to find them now, keep following the alphabet toward Z until you run into them.

The Vermont Collection was moved to the middle of the lower level, as were the Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese Collections.   The VHS collection was moved to open shelves in the center of the Main Lvl just east of the Government Documents.

From within ILLiad, select “Checked Out Items” from the menu on the left. Open the item you would like to renew by clicking on the request number. Click “Renew Request” at the top of the detailed information page to place the renewal request.

There is a limited window of opportunity for placing a renewal.  Renewals can only be placed 10 day before the due date through one day beyond the original due date.

Items already identified as non-renewable will have no button. However, each renewal request is sent to the lender for review, and it is up to the lender to grant or decline our renewal request, so seeing the button in ILLiad is NOT a guarantee of a renewal.

ILL staff will update Millennium and ILLiad with the dates provided by the Lending Libraries, and e-mail patrons when a renewal has been denied.  You can check the status of your renewal in ILLiad or in My MIDCAT

Rutland Railroad Archives Open House on April 30, 2010

A two page summary of material in the Rutland Railroad Archives can be found at http://midddigital.middlebury.edu/rutland_railroad/Summary%20of%20holdings%20of%20the%20Rutland%20Railroad%20Archives.doc and a more detailed 25 page listing of holdings can be found at http://midddigital.middlebury.edu/rutland_railroad/RRAGuide.htm.  A two page gateway to other resources relating to the Rutland Railroad Archives can be found at http://midddigital.middlebury.edu/rutland_railroad/RutlandRailroadArchivesHandout.htm.

Hans Raum served as co-chair of the two day convention held at the Middlebury Inn, which drew attendees from as far away as California.  Greg Pahl, an expert on the Beldens Falls Branch Railroad (and Joy Pile’s partner) spoke about the railroad at a program on Saturday, in preparation for a field trip on Sunday morning to visit traces of the short-lived railroad which ran from Beldens Falls, north of Middlebury, to a marble quarry about four miles away, east of Middlebury.

Below you will find the Spring 2011 edition of the LIS Focus document that outlines the activities that we’ll be focusing on this spring. For this quarter’s installment,  I’ve organized the document into a more traditional format that lays out the areas of focus for each of the workgroups and teams within LIS.

In addition to this quarterly snapshot of what’s keeping us busy, we still have our goals and our projects that provide another view into the on-the-ground view of what we are doing to achieve our longer-term vision for how LIS can support the ambitious goals of the College. The idea behind these quarterly snapshots is to provide a check-in to make sure that our annual and multi-year initiatives are making steady progress week-by-week, and to provide a transparency into what our priorities are.

RESEARCH & COLLECTION SERVICES

ILL Department

• Complete ILL Department Assessment, write report.
• Make improvements identified by Assessment process.
• OCLC Knowledge Base implementation.

P&P/Facilities Coordination

• Music Library Move: We will continue to work closely with Facilities Services and outside contractors to reorganize the shelving and book collections in Davis Library, and prepare for and then accomplish the move of the Music Library collections and related staff.
• DVD collection: We will reprocess and rehouse the DVD collection, transferring it into locking security cases.

Collection Management

• Reclass the portion of the DVD collection that currently uses the local call no. scheme (MCTR)
• Planning for RDA during the summer, assuming LC decides to adopt it.  If they do not, my inclination would be to follow their lead.
• Implement the Digital Center/Committee.

Reference & Instruction

• video tutorials: created a few and will be publicizing and assessing their usefulness
• segue from segue (several librarians are on the CT team)
• Music Library:  finding ways to be sure researchers know what’s now in Davis
• Information literacy:  developing pilot for advanced skills, evaluating testing tools for first-years
• Next-gen discovery tools:  training staff and creating a tutorial for researchers
• Liaisons:  refining list of what liaisons roles and responsibilities, thinking about training and staff awareness
• Statistics:  figuring out what we must track and what we can stop tracking

ENTERPRISE APPLICATIONS & SYSTEMS

CSNS

• Planning and implementation of network infrastructure and wireless services upgrades Many academic and administrative buildings and residential halls have new network equipment installed and operational, we are continuing to deploy new gear and turn up services that provide for increased performance, reduce risk of failure and offer expansion of wireless coverage.  Additionally, based on the work completed this far, we have the opportunity to assess our progress and examine challenges encountered thus far to better plan for the remaining execution of our current upgrade project and future initiatives.
• Inventory of services, systems and infrastructure: Significant evolutionary (at times it feels like revolutionary) information technology changes have taken place in recent years that has resulted in extensive growth and change with the College’s IT systems.  As we plan for the future, it is essential that understand how all of the technology we manage fits together, we transition with minimal disruption and we position ourselves to gracefully handle growth and take advantage of innovation.
• Disaster recovery planning and testing: As the day to day activities of Faculty, Staff and Students increasingly rely on technology, the consequences of service failures become more disruptive and expensive.  We are building out new a test environment, isolated from production customer facing services that, along with operational process and procedure changes, allow us to test backup and recovery procedures, changes to systems that address security vulnerabilities and product enhancements, and deployment of new services in a manner that reduces risk of unexpected production system/network failures or unexpected behavior.
• Integrating Middlebury College and Monterey Institute networks and systems: We are continuing to streamline access to IT services and identify efficiencies by eliminating duplicate systems and tightly integrating applications.  Plans for and current implementation underway include a new faster more reliable Internet connection at Monterey, new network administrative and authentication management services, and enhanced collaborative library and educational resources.

Enterprise Applications

• Evaluation of SunGard Hosted Banner Environment: When considering the costs associated with upgrades, appropriate disaster recovery, timely reporting database access, addressing load balancing concerns as well as a handful of other things, it is necessary to consider all options. An alternative option for Banner that is being investigated is offsite hosting at SunGard’s facility in Maitland, FL. Mike Roy and Danna Gianforte visited the Maitland facility in late March. A team of SunGard reps will now visit the Middlebury campus to discuss the process with the rest of the functional leads and technical staff.

• Implementation of Nolij Document Management: After a lengthy evaluation process, Nolij Web 6 was selected as our electronic document management solution. An implementation team will begin in May to build out the environment, setup training, etc. The first functional areas to go live will be undergrad Admissions.
• Implementation of Banner Workflow: The Banner Workflow module creates an automatic notification trail based on data changes in the system. For instance: if a termination date was entered in the HR module, an email could automatically be sent to the relevant folks that need to handle the termination process. Automated communication based on data changes within Banner will greatly enhance efficiency within the system.”

Web Application Development

• Mini-re-org: reassignment of responsibilities within workgroup and preparing for new review process.

• LMS recommendations and implementation
• Identity Management Project
• Platform Evaluations: Database of Faculty Accomplishments, E-commerce, Hiring Manager, Judicial Review, Portal, Student Room Selection

USER SERVICES

Helpdesk Service Requests

• Rolling out Windows 7
• Moving Equipment inventory into Heat
• Mobile device support

Media Services

• Build more smart classrooms. Replace the media equipment in the oldest smart classrooms. Divide classrooms into Tiers and create a template for each to streamline support and ease the construction of new and upgrading of old classrooms. Find an additional contractor or two to help us with smart classroom design and upgrades.
• Improve the way event and screening support requests are processed. Streamline and automate this process. This will involve replacing Filemaker Pro databases with R25 and/or Heat and/or another solution.
• Ensure that the Media Services group can program classroom systems (either Crestron or Extron). This will reduce upgrade expenses for classrooms, allow us to upgrade and build more classrooms per year, troubleshoot new classrooms better and greatly enhance team spirit.
• Refresh the lecture capture system (Accordent). Find easy(er) ways for streaming events (which may resolve overflow issues).

Labs and Public Computing

• Dual boot macs: Learning how to deploy (and deploying) dual-boot macs in labs and classrooms
• Virtual Machines: Improving our virtual machines to better serve students: Continuing the expansion to virtual applications and virtual printing. Formalize how the virtual computer lab is used, its capacity and how much growth costs.
• Windows 7: Deploying Windows 7 to labs. Implement a quarterly / 3-month update to the lab image. Testing software packages after they are deployed, in a timely and consistent manner. This will require working with faculty to create test files and scenarios for the software they need. Alternatively, we can continue to rely on faculty to test the software that we’ve installed upon their request. (Note that successfully installing a software application and opening it does not always test whether all its features are functional)

Telephone Services (and Printer Management)

• Continuation of printer consolidation/management.  We are combining all databases (PaperCut, Symquest, HEAT) into HEAT.  To this end we are doing a new inventory in April 2011 of printers and copiers on campus to get a one-time “”snapshot”" of the equipment.

• Printer Workflow: Work with the Helpdesk to establish a smooth workflow for new and replacement printer/multifunction devices. Examine and make recommendations for tools to make tracking these devices easier and more accurate.  The ultimate goal is to reduce the number of devices on our network to save money and to reduce our carbon footprint.
• LS Phones: Work with contractor and Language School administration to provide telephone service for the summer schools’ faculty.
• Emergency Notification System: Re-evaluate emergency notification system in light of notice from our vendor that states, “We recommend that any customer currently using our alerting services for emergency notifications immediately migrate to a solution designed for life-threatening emergencies or implement a second, redundant, system that ensures message delivery in a timely manner.

Circulation Services

• Music Library move
• Student and staff scheduling, summer 2011

TEAMS

Education & Training Team

• Work with campus departments to identify specific information and technology training needs. Recommend teaching/training/self-help strategies to address needs and support LIS goals.

• Work with Human Resources to incorporate training into the hiring process, and staff development across the College.
• Recommend how to build LIS staff development goals into the performance process.

LIS Website Team

• Strategies to market the LIS Website: how can we help draw attention to key parts of the site, focusing on a variety of audiences (students, faculty, staff, summer students, etc.)
• LIS Website assessment: User needs analysis for LIS website and follow-up usability testing
• LIS Wiki Mission/Purpose/Guidelines and coordinating enhancements to the Wiki including search enhancements (Chris N. & Joe A.), appearance (Alex C.), and taxonomy (Bryan C.)
• Possibly also creating similar guidelines for the LIS Blog, following the open discussion about the future of the LIS Blog
• Website refresh & enhancement strategies

Security

• We’ve started drafting security education topics.
• We continue to use the SaaS form to evaluate products and services that are being considered for purchase (we used it for Studio Abroad and a remote assistance tool that the Helpdesk is looking at)
• We explored full disk encryption as a security solution, running tests, quoting estimates and drafting guidelines.
• We attended (virtually and through Chris Norris in person) the Educause security conference.
• Ian put together a conference call with info sec / it sec staff from other educational institutions in the vicinity and we are exploring how we can use that.
• We have created a data loss response plan / procedure. This could be used, for example, for addressing stolen laptops.

Space

• on hiatus until summer (having just done yoemen’s work on planning the music library move, and plan for LIS office space!)

Curricular Technology Team

• developing LMS recommendation
• course hub development

LIS Administration

• Budget – shifting or restructuring monies needed for end of FY11 and beginning of FY12 to allow for shifting priorities
• Assessment – completing first round of Work-group services assessments ( ILL, Equipment distribution, backup & restore services.)
• Re-accreditation – gathering final data needed for re-accreditation
• Strategic Planning – longer term look at budget &  assessment or evaluations in line with projects on the horizon and evolving changes at the college and in the profession.

Drupal:

• A bug that caused file upload replacements to fail has been resolved. You can now replace an existing file by editing its file upload node and uploading a new version of the file, even one with the same filename.
• TIFF images have been added to the list of allowed file types.
• Added a Google Calendar content type that can be used to embed Google Calendars on pages of the site. MIIS has been using this for their events calendar for some time.
• The cache files for RSS feeds are now kept in the same location as other cache files, meaning that the feeds will be refreshed with the same periodicity as other features on the site.
• The full URL of the result page will now be shown below each search result. This was a suggestion we received from the Site Search Satisfaction Survey.
• We’re now keeping usage data on site search so we can better analyse how its various features are working.
• Updated the calendar template so that promotional calendars work properly when linking to the originating calendar.
• On the “business card” style list of profiles, the person’s name will now link to their specific profile instead of the page their profile appears on to handle the case where multiple profiles appear on a single page.

GO:

• The “my codes” area now lists your codes alphabetically for easier management. Thanks to Chris Norris for this suggestion.
• “Superadmins” now have additional features available when moderating flagged codes and for determining whether or not a code appears in the site search suggestions.

MiddLab:

Lots of new student project in MiddLab this week from the Spring Symposium. You can follow MiddLab on Twitter and get alerted to new projects as they are added.

• The Raja of Sattara and British Power in 19th Century India
  
• Understanding the Purpose of Modern Adaptations of Classic Works of Dramatic Literature: A Case Study of Anton Chekhov
• Marching on Rome: The Public and the Private in Civil Strife at Rome
• Monitoring Carbon Uptake on College Lands
• “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!”: The American Social Order through the Lens of the Jerry Springer Show
• Creating a National Ideal: How Baseball Drove Bushido in 20th Century Japan
• Millborne Farms: A Case Study of Modern Dairy Farming in Vermont
• The Role of Nuclear Energy in India’s Future with Regards to CO2 Emissions
• Good Mother/Bad Mother: Cultural Motherhood from “Hansel and Gretel” to Coraline
• Poverty Alleviation North and South of the Himalayas: Why has China Alleviated More Poverty than India?
• Why National Memory Matters: A Study of National Identity and Historical Responsibility in Contemporary Germany and Italy