The format of the meeting eschewed the traditional speaker followed by a few questions in favour of a lightning round describing current projects at representated colleges, then brainstorming topics to be further discussed in a series of “break-out” sessions. The format felt more collaborative and productive than simply presenting information. Discussions were deemed successful enough to warrant follow-up meetings.

Attendees from Middlebury: Wendy Shook, Rebekah Irwin, Bryan Carson.

So, once you do that, you might wonder: what’s with this “library quick search” thing?

The library quick search allows you to easily look for various types of materials by selecting the different tabs above the search box.

Specifically, you can think of the different tabs this way:

Summon is the “one-stop shopping” tab.  It searches 90+% of all library resources, including the items we physically own, online journal articles, and digital collections.  Totally lost and about to start weeping?  Start here!

Midcat+ provides a way to search the materials physically held by the library, as well as selected online resources such as eBooks.  This tab also lets you search NExpress, the combined catalog and holdings of 7 New England college libraries, and which you can use to borrow things Middlebury doesn’t own.  If you are looking for a specific book, movie, or CD that you think Middlebury or one of our partner libraries might own, try using this search.

Journals A-Z and Databases A-Z provide a way to look up specific journal or database titles, and see exactly which issues we provide access to.  You can also use a keyword to find all journals or databases containing a specific word in the title or description, e.g. “jazz” or “biology.”

Reserves is a easy way to view course reserves by class or professor name.

Videos searches our DVD and VHS holdings.  Check out the “browse videos by genre” function if you’re looking for, say, film noir or romantic comedies.

And, if you get stuck, there’s always a librarian around to help you figure things out.  Welcome to Middlebury!

How does your favorite charity rate?

To mark National Preservation Week, the Preservation staff in Davis Family Library is hosting an Open House from 1-4:30pm on Thur., April 26^th.  Stop by our workshop in LIB135 to see the various ways we preserve the library’s collections  and to watch our conservation technician at work.  Bring in your own book and paper preservation problems for evaluation by the staff.

See how a book goes from this…

…. to this!

Preservation Week is a collaborative effort supported by the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services, a division of the American Library Association, Library of Congress and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.  To learn more about it see http://www.atyourlibrary.org/passiton

Consider coming by the Preservation Dept. on your way to the Annual Rucker Lecture at 4:30! 

For more information contact Joseph Watson,  jwatson@middlebury.edu  443-5487

A gift of 1,172 titles from Bowdoin College expands our Chinese collection to a total of 5,021 volumes. Many important works on Chinese philosophy, literature, and history were added. The gift books are marked with neon pink flags.

We have re-cataloged the existing Chinese Collection, so that now Chinese books are in the Library of Congress classification order for better access and subject browsing.

The updated records contain Chinese characters, corrected Pinyin transliteration of Chinese names and titles, and added subject headings. While Midcat displays, but does not currently allow searching using Chinese characters, such searches can be performed through WorldCat.

We are still working on this project (and re-cataloged books still need to be re-labeled) so if the item you would like to check out is not on the shelf, or if it is marked “in process” in Midcat, please request it by emailing mevans@middlebury.edu or library_circulation@middlebury.edu and we will get it to you as soon as possible!

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.

The documentary film Pray the Devil Back to Hell features Leymah Gbowee, one of three Nobel Peace Prize winners. The DVD is available at the Davis Family Library for classroom screenings. Pray the Devil Back to Hell is the story of a small band of Liberian women who came together in the midst of a bloody civil war, took on the violent warlords and corrupt Charles Taylor regime, and won a long-awaited peace for their shattered country in 2003.

Tomas Tranströmer, a Swedish poet, won this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature. Currently, we have seventeen of Tranströmer’s works, in both English and Swedish, some newly ordered and still on their way. Choose the “notify when available” link to be the first to get these new volumes by Tranströmer in your hands.

For this year’s Nobel prize winning scientists, Middlebury’s collection of some 73,452 online and print journals can lead you to articles by Professor Dan Shechtman, Nobel prize laureate in Chemistry or  Saul Perlmutter, Nobel Prize winner in Physics. Finally, PubMed, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) free digital archive, lists articles by Ralph M. Steinman, the Nobel winner in Physiology or Medicine, for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity. Dr. Steinman died three days before the Nobel announcement. To learn more about his work, start with one of PubMed’s 400+ articles.

Visit the Nobel Prize website to learn more about this year’s winners and then Summon (go/summon) to search for films, electronic journals, books, and ebooks.

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

• Toolbar & right-click context menu: Search your library catalog directly from the LibX toolbar or using the right-click context menu.
• Support for off-campus access via EZProxy/WAM: Using the Library’s off-campus proxy, you may reload a page through the proxy, or follow a link via the proxy, making it appear as though you are coming from an on-campus computer.
• Quick full text access to journal articles: LibX uses Google Scholar to search for articles and directs the user to the electronic copy subscribed to by your Library. Select a citation, then drag-and-drop it onto the Scholar button on the toolbar. You can use this feature even from inside a PDF file, which makes retrieving papers referenced in a PDF file a snap.
• Support for embedded cues: LibX places cues in web pages you visit if your library has resources related to that page. Whenever you see the cue, click on the link to look at what the Library has to offer. For instance, book pages at Amazon or Barnes & Noble will contain cues that link to the book’s entry in Midcat. Cues are displayed at Google, Yahoo! Search, the NY Times Book Review, and other pages.