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

Most of the content in WordPress sites are Posts, chronologically ordered entries that make up a ‘blog’ or news site. Pages on the other hand, are non-time-dependent content that can be arranged in a hierarchy. Traditionally, Pages in WordPress sites were used mostly for describing the blog, contact information, or other content that rarely changes and isn’t ‘newsworthy’. (more on Posts vs. Pages)

Recently, a number of sites have been making increasingly large use of Pages, such as to hold curricular resources that are then referenced from Posts describing assignments that use them. For sites that make significant use of Pages, site-owners can now enable the RSS Includes Pages plugin so that new pages are added to your site’s main feed. For course sites in WordPress, enabling this plugin will allow page additions to be fed into the Course Hub as updates.

We still recommend making use of Posts in WordPress sites to share new material with readers rather than heavily using Pages as Pages are still second-class citizens in many ways (such as support for tagging and categorization). With the new RSS Includes Pages plugin, Page-heavy sites can now feed new content to the Course Hub and others subscribed to their feeds.

1. those that have moderate coverage
2. those that have minimal coverage, typically in lounges only
3. smaller houses that require only one or two WAPs

As mentioned in a previous blog post, LIS has embarked on an ambitious project to upgrade the campus network infrastructure, including improving wireless in the dorms.  All dorms are currently getting new network switches added to their wire closets to prepare for phase two, the deployment of new WAPs.  Dorms in the first group above (and gradually those in the third group as well) are getting all of their old WAPs replaced with newer equipment, while dorms in the second group are getting new WAPs deployed throughout. Dorms in the first group will be re-visited later on to determine if there are still gaps in the wireless coverage.

As an example, Hadley, Milliken, Kelly-Lang and Stewart are in group 1.  These dorms have had all of their old WAPs upgraded.  Hepburn is an example of group 2.  It has had new WAPs installed throughout the dorm.

Atwater A & B, Gifford, Battell, and Chateau are in progress now.  New switches have also been placed but not yet connected in Coffrin, Pearsons, Starr and Painter, which will also need new WAPs installed.

As you might imagine, this is an enormous task requiring lots of planning and coordination.  Please bear with us as we try to do this with minimal interruption to your access to the network!

The consolidation of the Music Library into Davis was proposed by the College Administration, with the stated aims of strengthening ties between the curriculum and the Middlebury Museum of Art, also located in the MCFA, and increasing the use of the MCFA building, which has declined substantially especially since the closing of the Rehearsals dining space.  The moves will also free up studio space in Johnson for the Program in Studio Art and Architectural Studies.

From the library perspective, it is my hope that incorporating the music collection into the Davis Family Library will increase the visibility of this fabulous library resource, one that has perhaps been underutilized due to its location on the periphery of the campus.  With almost 20,000 compact discs; over 18,000 scores; and 13,000 books about music, this is a tremendous resource for anyone with even a passing interest in music, encompassing everything from the latest contemporary classical and avant-garde works to jazz, blues, and popular music for study or recreational listening.  We hope that integration of the music collection into Davis will inspire the musically-curious to investigate our collection and take advantage of the riches it contains.

Moving a collection of this size entails, of course, a great deal of planning and no small amount of disruption, especially during the summer months of 2011.  LIS hopes that our constituents will bear with us through this transition period, and have patience for any temporary inconveniences you encounter.  Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments at: Terry Simpkins (tsimpkin@middlebury.edu) 802-443-5045, Davis Family Library 202C

Our local contractor, Business Telephone Systems, working with our telephone system vendor, Black Box Network Services, installed the new server and phones in late September.  We are using the existing campus fiber network that was connected to the Bowl in the spring of 2009.  Howie McCausland and I tested the voice quality over the fiber with the vendor this past August.  Our network passed the test with flying colors.

The Snow Bowl now has a combination of IP phones in the offices and analog lines elsewhere.   The two major requirements for the new system were that it had enough analog trunk lines to accommodate the telephones at the lift load and unload stations and that the system not need dedicated bandwidth on the fiber.  A POE switch was installed to keep the IP phones going during a power outage, and in the event of a network outage the phones will failover to one of the four telephone company analog trunks remaining.

While we were not able to record the sessions due to some technical difficulties, I have prepared a guide to adding your project to MiddLab. Feel free to edit that page to add your own tips on creating a successful project description or send an email to middlab@middlebury.edu if anything is unclear. I will host another meeting to discuss MiddLab during the Spring semester, for those who were not able to attend, but I’m also more than happy to meet individually with Faculty, Staff, Students, departments, and offices.

Publications Database

During a discussion with Bob Cluss and Colleen Converse, we came up with an idea for a sub-site in MiddLab that serves as a portal to discover publicly available academic publications from our faculty and students. I’ll be working on adding that this semester and welcome you to send documents or (preferably) links to these papers in public databases to middlab@middlebury.edu. If the document is larger than 10MB, please send it to website@middlebury.edu instead. If you already have a site that lists these documents that you’d like to be included, you can also just send that link and I’ll take care of the rest.

Look for this information to be added to MiddLab shortly, giving people both on and off-campus another easy way to find information on the active and ongoing research at Middlebury.

Working More Closely with You

I also want to make you aware of a small change in policy about the inclusion of content in MiddLab. Due to some concerns about the unfortunate rules surrounding some academic publication and to ensure that all research collaborators are willing to be included, we’ll now ask that every person involved in a research project agrees to have it hosted in MiddLab before it is put up. I can also remove content from the site where your name appears if you would not like it published in this manner. You can see any mention of your work in MiddLab by browsing the People page. Please address any concerns to middlab@middlebury.edu.

• Tuesday, October 5, 4-5PM in LIB 105: We will discuss how MiddLab has been used to discuss articles in student publications, summer research projects, theatre performances, and live presentations. We’ll briefly show you how you can create your own page in MiddLab and leave plenty of time for questions and discussion on how MiddLab can be used to provide a space for discussion of student and faculty research.
• Wednesday, October 6, 1-2PM in LIB 105: We’d like to talk to faculty and staff working in the many offices who support research and learning at the College (Academic Affairs, ACE, CCSRE, CTLR, Grants, LIS, OLR, SA, URO, SFS, STSS, Sustainability Integration, and surely several more). We’ll demonstrate how MiddLab has been useful in providing a continued space for the project and events you create as members of these offices, like the Life Stories project in CCSRE, staff research projects, or the many presentations at the Spring and Summer URO Symposiums. We’ll briefly show you how projects are added to MiddLab and leave plenty of time for questions and discussion.

We hope to see you there! As always, if you have any questions about MiddLab, or would like to add your work to the growing list of projects, let us know by sending an email to middlab@middlebury.edu. More information is available on the About MiddLab site, or in anarticle in this week’s issue of The Campus.

Add a MiddLab widget to your site!

We’ve added a new content type to Drupal that can display a MiddLab project in your site’s sidebar. To use this, edit your sidebar page and click Add in the Edit Console, thene select “MiddLab Widget” from the list of content types. You’ll then see a list of checkboxes with MiddLab themes, departments, and offices. Check the boxes that are appropriate to your area and save the new node.

The result will look something like this:

This is a neat, and very easy, way to highlight student, faculty, and staff work that takes place in your department or is sponsored by your office. If your department or office doesn’t have any projects in MiddLab right now and you’d like us to add some, we’d love to hear from you. Again, just email middlab@middlebury.edu.