Tag Archives: Research & Instruction

New Video and Laptop Viewing Equipment at Armstrong Library

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Submitted by Judy Watts

Students asked, and we provided!

Thanks to Dean Cadoret and others, Armstrong Library group study rooms now have equipment for video and laptop viewing.  For computer use, researchers can bring their own laptops or check out a laptop from the Circulation Desk.  For videos, a DVD player/VCR is already in the room.

This is another outcome based on feedback received from the Post-It note bulletin board Carrie MacFarlane did at Armstrong last year. Carrie and Brendan Owen, Digital Media Intern, will be doing a presentation on this effort next week at The October Conference , Space 2.0 : Small-Scale Library Redesign Projects, at Dartmouth.

Nice teamwork, Carrie and Brendan!

Would-be-Voters in the Library

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Submitted by Judy Watts

You are registered, right?

Voter registration materials are available in the Main Library atrium. If you or anyone you know, are not registered to vote in the November elections, stop by to pick up the materials.


Thanks to Brenda Ellis and Jean Simmons for getting the materials, Joseph Watson for helping with the display, and Morgan Connor for the brilliant picture.

Meeting Classes – Introducing LIS Resources

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Submitted by Judy Watts

With 17 class days in September, Librarians will have presented 53 classes. That’s a rate of 3 per day since the beginning of the academic year. Perhaps you can understand why getting these scheduled into rooms with adequate equipment, e.g., smart classrooms with computers for students has us tearing our hair.

First Year Seminars represent the greatest percentage of classes at the beginning of the term. New students need a basic introduction to LIS resources and services. Classes will often be back for in-depth instruction in subject resources when research papers are assigned.

It is interesting to see the range of subjects addressed:

Date — Course — Title — Librarian
4 FYSE 1066 Voices Along the Way (Judy)
4 FYSE 1236 The Malleable Human (Carrie)
8 FYSE 1215 Empires (Brenda)
8 CHEM 0322 Biochemistry of Macromolecules (1) (Carrie)
8 CHEM 0322 Biochemistry of Macromolecules (2) (Carrie)
8 CHEM 0322 Biochemistry of Macromolecules (3) (Carrie)
9 HIST 0600 History Research Seminar (Brenda)
9 HIST 0600 History Research Seminar (Andy)
10 FYSE 1020 Crime & Punishment in America (Andy)
10 FYSE 1253 The Brain in Sickness & in Health (Bryan)
10 FYSE 1048 Ecology and Conservation in Vermont (Carrie)
10 FYSE 1237 What Is Life? (Carrie)
11 FYSE 1062 Brother Can You Spare a Dime? (Andy)
11 FYSE 1248 The Trojan War (Cynthia)
11 FYSE 1249 Food and Choice (Joe)
11 JAPA 0275 Seminar in Japanese (Joy)
11 FYSE 1174 Andy Warhol (Judy)
12 FYSE 1236 The Malleable Human (Carrie)
12 FYSE 1244 Geology of National Parks (Carrie)
15 Hist 0700 Senior World History Seminar (Brenda)
15 Hist 0700 Senior US History Thesis Seminar (Andy)
15 HARC 0214 Art in the Middle Ages (Judy)
16 SOAN 0302 Resch: Ethnography Qual Methods (Jean)
16 PSYC 0202 Research Methods (Bryan)
16 GEOG 0100 Place and Society (Carrie)
17 Econ 0700 Senior Research (Brenda)
17 FYSE 1258 Performing Culture (Judy)
17 FYSE 1244 Geology of National Parks (Carrie)
18 SOAN 0302 Rech: Ethnography Qual Methods (Jean)
18 HIST 0397 The U.S. and the Pacific (Andy)
18 PSYC 0105 Intro. To Psychology (1) (Bryan)
18 PSYC 0105 Intro. To Psychology (2) (Bryan)
18 PSYC 0105 Intro. To Psychology (3) (Bryan)
18 FYSE 1245 Sound: the Aural Ether (Joy)
19 PSYC 0105 Intro. To Psychology (4) (Bryan)
19 PSYC 0105 Intro. To Psychology (5) (Bryan)
19 FYSE 1021 Love & Death (Bryan)
19 FYSE 1236 The Malleable Human (Carrie)
22 GEOL 0400 Senior Thesis Seminar (Carrie)
23 REFWORKS (Brenda)
23 FYSE 1264 Race Difference in 20th C America (Andy)
23 FYSE 1250 Songwriting (Joy)
23 FYSE 1211 Godel, Escher, Bach (Judy)
23 CHEM 0311 Instrumental Analysis (Carrie)
23 HARC 0219 Northern Renaissance Art (Judy)
25 FYSE 1255 The Collapse of Complex Societies (Jean)
25 FYSE 1254 Liberation and Literature (Joy)
25 REFWORKS (Richard)
29 PSYC 0700 Senior Research (Bryan)
29 FYSE 1256 Captains, Kings, Caudillos (Joy)
29 SPAN 0300 Hispanic Literature (Joy)
29 FYSE 1048 Ecology and Conservation in Vermont (Carrie)
30 REFWORKS (Jean)

Basic technology instruction is included in a large percentage of these classes, introduced either by a Technology Liaison or by the Librarian. Classes that involve intensive use of digital media generally schedule classes separately. Some of that activity will be reported at a later date.

RefWorks Updates – Write-N-Cite III in the Labs

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Submitted by Judy Watts

RefWorks has made some significant improvements to its Windows version of Write-N-Cite –version III- –  making it possible to edit and add references to formatted papers. Jean Simmons has requested similar updates for Mac users. Jean has attended two online training sessions to learn about this as well as other new features, e.g., switching between versions of W-N-C, importing from RSS feeds, creating bibliographies from materials in several folders with “My List,” working offline, appending attachments to a record. . .  . Ask her what you may not know and please sit in on a RefWorks workshop. RefWorks can be helpful to anyone who needs to keep book lists, citations, or bibliographies in order..

Thanks to Brian Foley, LIB 105 already has Write-N-Cite III and Armstrong 161 will have it soon.

Taming Technolust: Ten Steps for Planning in a 2.0 World

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via Elin Waagen

This quarter’s issue of “Reference & User Services Quarterly” features a guest post entitled “Taming Technolust: Ten Steps for Planning in a 2.0 World” that the editor of the journal — M. Kathleen Kern– introduces with the following:

“This quarter, Michael Stephens of the popular Tame the Web blog offers advice on dodging “technolust” and how to recognize and deal with “technodivorce.” It isn’t all avoidance, though, as he provides ten positive steps for your library’s technology planning. Michael has a pedigree in technology planning as the former Special Projects Librarian at Saint Joseph County (Ind.) Public Library. He now teaches in the LIS program at Dominican University and recently authored two Technology Reports on Web 2.0 for the American Library Association. If you’ve heard Michael speak, you will recognize his straight-from-the-hip style. ”

It’s an interesting diatribe, and one worthy of further discussion. (Hint hint… use the comments!)

Digital Media

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Submitted by Joe Antonioli

This summer, the Digital Media Tutors took on numerous projects, more than three times what had been proposed in the past. The following tallies do not include the walk-in Language School assistance.

Number of proposed projects – 90
Number completed or being supported this fall – 84
Faculty and staff we worked with (not including research or staff assistants) – 64

Images scanned with metadata – ~1400
Videoclips – 32
Original video – 8
Blogs created and designed – 16
Segue sites, created and re-imagined – 11
3D projects – 7
Wikis – 2
Maps – 2

Formal one-on-one instruction sessions – 17
FYSE assignments – 13
Other class assignments – 3

Some of these projects will continue this fall, as the DMTs who worked with faculty during the summer will now support the First Year Seminar classes taught by those professors. For samples of their work and activities, go to http://sites.middlebury.edu/dmts/ and http://sites.middlebury.edu/virtualmidd/.

Thank you to Brett Wilhelm for setting up the development environment for WordPress MU, allowing us to test plugins before bringing them to the production environment.

Recently, three more plugins have been added. Private Only allows the owner of a blog to require a login for anyone to view their blog. WP-Stats will allow a blog owner to view user activity on their blog. Ian McBride recommended and tested cForms, a plugin that allows a blog owner to create and embed forms in their blog, and have the submissions sent to the owner via email.

A plugin must be activated so that it can be used on your Middlebury blog. To do this, got to the PLUGINS page (the link is in the upper right-hand side) and click on the Activate link.

If you would like your blog listed on MiddBlogs, please email Joe at jantonio@middlebury.edu.

Research and Instruction

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Submitted by Judy Watts

Announcing: MiddTube-lite

This is a very basic interface for managing media on the Flash Media Server, affectionately called MiddTube. This interface allows streaming of .flv, .mp4 and .mp3 files. Thank you to Brett Wilhelm for all of his work in creating this interface.

Because MiddTube does not currently encode, Joe recommends MPEG StreamClip ( http://www.squared5.com/ ) and the Perian ( http://perian.org/ ) plugin.

What can I do now?

Upload a file, delete it, and update it by overwriting.

Integration

Brett has written a MiddTube plugin for our instance of WordPress MU. This will allow anyone to embed a video from MiddTube into our WP blogs using a simple syntax – [middtube username {name of file, no extension}] For the geeks at heart, this short text line will be translated into embed code, using the FlowPlayer. The FlowPlayer will also generate an embed code that can be copied and pasted into other html pages. Adam Franco has created similar functionality for Segue, and Ian McBride is working on embedding for the CMS. Once the media has been embedded, the code in the player can be used to embed the media in any web page.

If you would like a MiddTube account, please contact Joe Antonioli (jantonio@middlebury.edu). For more information, go to the MiddTube page in the LIS wiki – https://mediawiki.middlebury.edu/wiki/LIS/MiddTube.

The Vermont Library Association’s Reference Roundtable took place on Wednesday at St. Michael’s. Look to Jean Simmons or Brenda Ellis for a report on what they learned.

On Monday, Brenda will be doing a presentation at the Mad River Writing Retreat for FYSE faculty that the CTLR puts on each year.

We’re preparing our contribution to the First-Year Orientation Information Center, to be held at the Main Library and scheduled for Wednesday, September 3. The Research & Instruction Section will provide a variety of staffed demos and a video introducing librarians. Take time to look around and to welcome new students and their families.

LIS orientation for New Faculty will take place on Friday, August 29. Watch for the new faculty faces in the afternoon.

The Research & Instruction Group offers thanks and appreciation to Carrie Rampp for able, challenging, enthusiastic, energizing, encouraging, inspirational, innovative, and patient leadership. Carrie, you did it all and you made it fun. We’ll miss your hearty laugh as much as your creative ideas. Our best wishes for success at Bucknell go with you!