On the eve of winter recess, we wanted to share our gratitude for a fall semester of learning and growth. We loved working with each and every one of you!
Here’s to a peaceful and restorative break, and a healthy and happy new year.
Happy Winter!
Author Archives: Carrie Macfarlane
Bye-bye Summon, Hello LibrarySearch
The Library has hundreds of databases, indexes and catalogs, providing access to millions of articles, books, films, musical recordings and primary sources. That sounds promising… until it sounds overwhelming. Where should you start your research? We used to recommend Summon, but over the summer, we replaced Summon with LibrarySearch.
Like its predecessor Summon, LibrarySearch is a great place to begin your research. That’s because LibrarySearch links you to nearly everything in our collections. And, we think LibrarySearch is even better than Summon at matching results to your search terms.
We’re still straightening out some of the kinks with our new discovery service. For example, LibrarySearch is linking to materials at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, and it is not linking to many of our online newspapers. So as always, please get in touch with a librarian if you’re not finding what you need.
Next time you’re starting a research project, try LibrarySearch! Look for it at the center of the Library home page, or at go.middlebury.edu/librarysearch.
Welcome to the Libraries, Class of 2023!
Welcome to the Libraries! Come and say hello to a librarian at the Research Desk. We provide expert research help, bookmarks, collectible library pins and (sometimes) candy! Find us on the main level of the Davis Family Library.
Fall Research Desk Hours
(September 9 – December 13)
- Sunday 2pm-5pm
- Monday 11am-5pm and 7pm-9:30pm
- Tuesday 11am-5pm and 7pm-9:30pm
- Wednesday 11am-5pm and 7pm-9:30pm
- Thursday 11am-5pm
- Friday 11am-4pm
And online anytime at:
go.middlebury.edu/askalibrarian
No one’s at the Research Desk?
Visit us in our offices! Librarians are conveniently located right behind the Research Desk.
What about the Armstrong Library?
A librarian is available most days at the Armstrong Library in McCardell Bicentennial Hall, too. Just ask!
Experience the Library in Your Language
Finding your way around the library takes time, and we know that during summer language schools, time is scarce! That’s why we’ve created guides to the library for every summer language, from Spanish, to Hebrew to 
Chinese and more. Browse a complete list of guides here.
Each guide is curated by a Middlebury librarian to help you find what you need quickly. We provide links to lists of in-language books, search tips, and answers to questions that have been asked by other students.
Most importantly, each guide includes contact information for a librarian who can help. Use the “Schedule Appointment” button to sign up for a one-on-one research consultation with your librarian. Talk with us about what you’re working on — and save yourself some time!
Find your research guide at go.middlebury.edu/guides.
Announcing the New Library Website
You’re right, things look a little different this week! We’re excited to announce the launch of our new library website. We’ve streamlined and reorganized our content, and we’re now mobile-friendly! We hope it’ll be even easier for you to find what you need, and to discover useful and inspiring resources that you didn’t even know to ask for.
Please note that the site, though live, is not quite in its final form. We’ll be making minor upgrades and revisions in the coming weeks.
Many thanks to the Library Website User Experience Team, Library Website authors, and, last but not least, our colleagues at the Office of Communications!
Now, go ahead and update your bookmarks to point to: http://go.middlebury.edu/lib . We’ll see you there!
MLA Bibliography Has Moved to EBSCOhost
The Modern Language Association (MLA) has decided to make the MLA Bibliography available exclusively on the EBSCOhost platform. For this reason, we have moved our MLA Bibliography subscription from the ProQuest platform to EBSCOhost. You may already be familiar with EBSCOhost if you’ve accessed our eBook collection, or any other number of databases hosted by EBSCO.
What does this mean for you?
The content is the same! It’s still the MLA Bibliography, but it looks slightly different now. What, exactly, has changed? The basic and advanced search forms, buttons for emailing and saving records, and links to access articles and books via full-text databases, MIDCAT, and Interlibrary Loan — all of these appear in slightly different locations, fonts or colors. But overall, MLA via EBSCOhost will feel at least somewhat familiar, we expect.
How to adapt to this change?
Visit MLA on the EBSCOhost platform and take a look around. Then, update any personal bookmarks to point to the MLA via EBSCOhost: http://go.middlebury.edu/mla.
Questions or concerns?
Please reach out to your library liaison for assistance.
Welcome Back, Alumni!
Take a break from your busy schedule to enjoy a few moments of tranquility at the Davis Family Library.
Special Collections (LIB 101, Lower Level) invites you to an Open House on Friday from 1-4 p.m. “Object Poems” are on exhibit all weekend — learn more about them in the Atrium, Lower Level and Special Collections.
And in case you couldn’t fit yours in your carry-on…yearbooks!!! Look for them on the Middlebury blue book carts in the Atrium!
Overdue – a poem
Thanks to poet Gary Margolis for sharing this library-related poem.
The library sends you a notice to return
three hundred books of theirs
shelved in your personal library.
No other patron has asked to borrow
one of them over these years.
Before there were security men
and x-rays, a chip, to let the circulation
desk know where a book has been.
On a shelf. Next to a bed. In a satchel
left on a train, traveling from Paris
to Bonn and back again. You have no
way of retrieving. Or remembering
if that book was rare.
If there were notes in the margins,
you, or some other reader, wrote in pen.
Another offence against you,
in this borrowed lifetime.
Which is never long enough to pretend
you’ll have enough time, in the after-
life or here, to renew yourself.
Ignore all the overdue notices
that used to arrive by boat,
to your unaddressed island.
Where, you’re happy to assume,
no one can reach you. Or that drone
overhead, dropping its hook,
to retrieve what you don’t believe
isn’t yours. Which you can keep for
as long as there are writers,
who want you to read what they have written.
Editors and publishers who believe
in more than one reader. And buildings
as large as computers, to hold all
the books in the world, for someone
like you to take out, forget whether you have
read them or not. And where they belong.
-Gary Margolis Ph.D.
Executive Director, Emeritus,
College Mental Health Services
Associate Professor of English
and American Literatures
Middlebury College
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