Tag Archives: LibrarySpotlight

Different Worlds

It’s one thing when black people aren’t discussed in world history. Fortunately, teams of dedicated historians and culture advocates have chipped away at the propaganda often functioning as history for the world’s students to eradicate that glaring error. But when, even in the imaginary future — a space where the mind can stretch beyond the Milky Way to envision routine space travel, cuddly space animals, talking apes, and time machines — people can’t fathom a person of non-Euro descent a hundred years into the future, a cosmic foot has to be put down. 

~ Ytasha Womack, Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture

The Different Worlds display can be found in the atrium of the Davis Family Library throughout J Term.

The seeds of this display grew out of frustration. I was the sort of reader who wanted to like science fiction and fantasy, but often struggled to do so, because it often felt like reading the same book over and over again. The appeal of speculative fiction, for me, is in finding a new lens through which to engage the human condition, even if the human in question is actually a robot or an alien or a… I don’t know, a halfling or something. But much of the canon of fantasy literature can come to feel like endless riffing on J. R. R. Tolkein ; the science fiction I grew up with was all by Robert Heinlen or Isaac Asimov. Not that those books can’t be satisfying reads, but I was just looking for something else. Something that came from somewhere else entirely.

Around that same time, Afrofuturism was beginning to push into the mainstream — not quite full on MCU, Black Panther-level yet, but more visible than its 1990s roots. So I read Who Fears Death? by Nnedi Okorafor, and re-read some Octavia Butler. And it was like someone had opened a window to let fresh air into a stale, stuffy room. These were voices that came from different perspectives, less familiar (to me) perspectives… but isn’t that the whole point of speculative fiction? To clear out the familiar in order to see the world through different eyes? Speculative fiction that treads the same ground over and over again, while it can be comforting, is useless as a medium for introspection. And without introspection, what’s the point of suspending the rules of our everyday lives in favor of new possibilities?

In this collection you’ll find:

Rebecca Roanhorse’s story of climate apocalypse

Cixin Liu’s collection of mind-bending science fiction short stories

Mohsin Hamid’s portal-hopping love story

Ken Liu’s historically-inspired Chinese epic fantasy

Tomi Adeyemi’s wildly popular trilogy about young people with magical gifts

… and lots, lots more.

For me, this was about opening my eyes to perspectives that are different than mine; for you, it may be a chance to finally recognize your own experience in these genres. There are so many ways to be in the world, and so many perspectives from which to learn, and in which to recognize ourselves. And so, the search led from book to book, first one addition to our collection and then another. This display is our effort to bring some of these works out of the stacks and put them in front of your eyes. It represents only a starting point for your explorations; there are worlds and ideas out there still waiting to be discovered. 

Here are some useful terms and sources to help you look for more books like these:

Anthologies can be a useful way to find works by authors from under-represented cultures. Websites like BookRiot and Tor.com also frequently publish lists of similar and related titles. If there’s a work that you think would be a valuable addition to this collection — or even just something that you’d like to read that we don’t own yet! — you can request any title at any time via go/request/. Many titles (for example, N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy) are also available as audiobooks at go/audiobooks/.

Many thanks to Katrina Spencer, and especially to Kat Cyr, for their help and support in pulling this display together.

Amy Frazier is the Film & Media Librarian at the Davis Family Library, and also a huge nerd.

New Video Tutorial for 2019: Citation For People Who Hate Citation!

Middlebury Libraries is happy to unveil our newest video tutorial for 2019: Citation For People Who Hate Citation. This is a big-picture look at citation: why we do it, what it’s for, and how to make it an easier, stress-free process. Big thanks to Middlebury students Emma Román ’22 and Kayla Moore ’22 for their participation! You can watch the video here, or find it at go/CitationForPeople/.

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 Experience the library in your languageChinese 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.

Audiobooks on OverDrive and You

What are audiobooks?

a librarian at desk
Literatures & Cultures Librarian Katrina Spencer poses at the Research Desk, modeling audiobook use with sex columnist Dan Savage’s American Savage.

Audiobooks on OverDrive are digital versions of a book, often a novel, that allow you to listen to a book’s text. Many come in downloadable MP3 format files and are therefore portable on many electronic devices like iPods. Sometimes the authors read their works to you with modest sound effects or other dramatizations of the story or action! Audiobooks can also be found on CDs in the Middlebury College Libraries’ collection. See a thorough listing here.

Why might I want use them?

If it’s hard to find still moments to sit down and open a print work or scroll through an ebook, audiobooks offer a hands-free alternative to the other formats. So, you can carry out household chores, drive, or even exercise while listening to an audiobook.

Where can I see what’s available?


A screenshot representing a small sample of the ~200 audiobooks available at go.middlebury.edu/overdrive.

In terms of what the Middlebury College Libraries holds on OverDrive, just visit go.middlebury.edu/overdrive for access to over 200 audiobooks. If you’re a Vermont resident and a holder of a public library card, you can access 5,000+ titles through the Green Mountain Library Consortium. See go.middlebury.edu/gmlc for more information and use your last name in all caps, ex. ALI, as your password.

Do you have any recommendations?

Book cover art for Eddie Huang’s memoir, Fresh Off the Boat

Yes, sure! But that depends on what you like. One of my favorite parts of my job is readers’ advisory. Look at the bolded type for genre:

  • If you want a psychological thriller in the realm of domestic noir, I recommend The Silent Wife.
  • If dystopian fantasy is what you’re into, Director of Access and Discovery Terry Simpkins and Library Associate Kat Cyr swear by N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Series.
  • If you want to access a classic and haven’t gotten around to it, Things Fall Apart is available.
  • Social justice? Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me is sure to please and enlighten. And Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed also deeply engages systemic injustice.
  • Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer lit? I really enjoyed Less. Dr. Marcos Rohena-Madrazo of the Department of Luso-Hispanic Studies is a big fan of Redefining Realness.
  • Humor? Everything’s Trash, But It’s Okay.
  • Disability studies? Good Kings Bad Kings is on the docket.
  • Then there’s also historical non-fiction like The War Before the War.
  • Historical fiction? Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-prize winning The Underground Railroad is recommendable.
  • And we have memoirs like Michelle Obama’s Becoming— though you may have to wait awhile to get to this one. See my review of it in The Campus, in the meanwhile.
  • Oh, and if you’re studying a foreign language like Spanish, you’ve got about 10 works to choose from on OverDrive and several on CDs in many languages found in the foreign language browsing collection on the main level of the Davis Family Library.

There’s a lot out there!

How can I use them and what should I know about the app?

There are three basic steps for accessing audiobooks:

a flyer advertisement
A flyer with detailed instructions on how to use OverDrive’s audiobooks, a condensed version reproduced at left
  1. Download the OverDrive app, create an original account and after signing in, add the Davis Family Library.
  2. When prompted to sign in with a library card, accept, but use your Middlebury credentials instead.
  3. Make a selection, borrow and manage your ebookshelf.

Also, when in doubt, you are welcome to ask a librarian for help or visit the guide found at go.middlebury.edu/ebookguide. With regard to the OverDrive app, there are some cool options like setting a timer for when you want the recording to stop playing, for example, if you’re getting in bed to sleep, and adjusting the speed of the player if you want to move through some text more quickly or more slowly than others. There’s some bookmarking, too.

Book cover art
Book covert art for Harriet McBryde Johnson’s Accidents of Nature

For how long can I borrow audiobooks?

There are two loan periods: 7 days and 14 days. Know that only one user will use each audiobook at a time. So, if desirable, you can place a hold on a work if you want to be in line for when a popular item is released. Check out up to three audiobooks at a time!

Last words?

They’ve changed my life, for the better. I hope they are of use to you, too. Also, to hear more from Middlebury audiobook users, see this week’s issue of The Campus.

Update on New York Times access

New York TimesYou may be aware that we’ve had an access problem with the New York Times web site over the past few months. The short version of the issue is that SGA was providing online access until NYT discontinued that program…which no one on campus realized until our access ceased (there’s more detail in this Campus article). The Times’ new program is extremely expensive, and the library’s funding for this fiscal year was set last year. Partial access is still available; would that full access were, and we wish an immediate solution were at hand. We haven’t given up, though, and are still working on the problem. Please feel free to contact Douglas Black, Head of Collections Management, for more information.

Links to our remaining options for online access access to the NYT are in the Journals list New York Times. (You can get to this list on your own by clicking on the “Journals” tab on the library home page and searching for “new york times.”) For today’s paper, select “Global Newsstream,” a database that provides NYT articles with full text but without images. Need help? Ask a librarian.

More Consistent Linking from Library Databases

In order to provide a consistently satisfactory user experience, in which users of the Library’s research databases (and the Summon discovery service) don’t face dead-end blank screens when trying to reach articles and books, the Library will deactivate Index-enhanced Direct Linking (IEDL) in our link resolver (360Link).

What does this mean exactly?
Index-enhanced Direct Linking (IEDL) is available for certain article databases that cooperate with the company which provides 360Link.  IEDL takes the user from a results list to an article or book without any kind of intermediate screen. From certain databases (and from Summon), IEDL was supposed to streamline the user experience by eliminating clicks between the search results and the items themselves. This has not turned out to be the case.

What will I see?
When you click on a link for full-text, you will now see the familiar intermediate screen for all articles and books.  This “Get it @ Midd” screen is 360Link, our link resolver.  You will then click a button to access the item, as you always have in cases where you saw this screen. The intermediate screen will be similar to the following example:

Get It @ Midd page

Why did we make the change?
For several reasons having to do with commercial relationships among various database vendors, IEDL used to function better than it currently does. Now, the inconvenience of the dead-end screens occurs much more often. The dead ends (blank screens) provide little or no useful information as to how the user can access materials the Library actually has. Always displaying the intermediate “Get it @ Midd” screen will allow users to see our accurate holdings and to obtain access consistently.

Questions and/or Feedback
Please feel free to comment below or send questions to the Midd librarians at http://go.middlebury.edu/askus .

Faculty: Are you grading research papers…

…and hoping they’ll be a little better next time? Talk with a librarian! We’d love to help you build more research and information literacy support into your spring semester classes. Our new InfoLit site describes what we do, and how it makes a difference. You’ll find assignment ideas, sample workshops, and of course, lots more prompts to talk with a librarian.

InfoLit site

“Every student who met with you commented on how that meeting focused their work and led them to search the appropriate literature quickly and effectively.”
-Faculty feedback on library research consultations for students, Fall 2018