Author Archives: Patricia Hornbeck

Oscar Online

Submitted by Patty Hornbeck

Just in time for the 81st Academy Awards — for those of you who are interested — the newly revamped Web site of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was officially launched earlier this month.

Thanks to the work of graduate interns Brendan Smith and Brendan Owens, a portal to the lecture archive which allows much better access is now online at go/dla. Marlena Evans and Kristin Geoghagen have been cataloging the recent lectures in CONTENTdm.

The Film and Media Culture Department will offer a public screening of Revolutionary Road on Sunday, March 15. The screenwriter, Justin Haythe (Midd ’96) will be on hand to introduce the film and engage in a Q-and-A about it after the screening. The film won a Golden Globe Best Actress prize for Kate Winslet a week or so ago, and now has an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Increasingly, films purchased on DVD are coming with a digital copy for the purpose of transferring to a PC, Mac, iPod, etc. We’re investigating what the options for these are, and how other libraries are dealing with them.

End-of-term activities

Cataloging staff and other members of CM met earlier this week in a workshop designed to take a look at CONTENTdm, the software used by the Library to manage its digital collections. Topics covered by presenters Richard Jenkins, Brendan Owens, Brendan Smith, and myself included CONTENTdm functionality, portal development, metadata standards for the lecture archive, and cataloging with the acquisitions station.

A Web session hosted by OCLC on the version 5 CONTENTdm upgrade is being held in LIB145 on Tuesday December 16, from 2:00 – 5:00 pm. The room can probably hold a few more people if you’re interested in attending.

Students from Sight and Sound II and Animation Production screened their work on the evening of December 4th in Dana Auditorium. Links to the online videos will be available soon on the Middlebury Film and Media blog.

MCAB will sponsor six films during JTerm, starting with Mean Girls on the 9th at 7:00 and 10:00 pm in Dana Auditorium. Some films will be shown in the Grille — check the College Calendar for details.

Multimedia Resources

Submitted by Patty Hornbeck

Fall term additions to Multimedia Resources include:
A dozen new events in the lecture archive including two faculty panels on the economic crisis and the 2008 Clifford Symposium;
Copyright resources from Pacific Film Archive;
Other lecture archive sites: FORA-TV, Georgetown University Webcasts, and Stanford Humanities Center.

One of the lecture archive sites in Multimedia Resources, Connie Martin Talks Books, offers an unexpected look at a younger Barack Obama. The full interview is available, but here’s a clip (edited with Virtual Cutter): Obama interview 1995.

Online Video

Submitted by Patty Hornbeck

LIS graduate interns Brendans Owen & Smith have started work on a portal for the lecture archive as well as enhancements to the search function in CONTENTdm which will allow browsing by subject and lecturer name.

ASP The Library’s subscription to Theatre in Video, a database of plays in streaming video from Alexander Street Press, was a pleasant surprise to students in Cheryl Faraone’s Theatre History class who are using it to view online several of the Greek dramas required for the course.

The first lecture of the 2008-09 Faculty Lecture Series was given on September 18 by David Stoll, Department of Sociology and Anthropology. That lecture, as well as an Athletics Department presentation by Dan Doyle, the founder of the Institute for International Sport, has been added to the lecture archive. If you have a chance, look at the multimedia presentation that precedes Professor Stoll’s lecture. As Media Services refine use of the Accordent video system you’ll see more of this.

The Internet Movie Database, a popular and comprehensive online database of global film information, is now offering free viewing of an advertised 6,000 feature films and television shows. Here’s a review of the service by Jason Kinkaid at TechCrunch.com.