Tag Archives: resources

More issues of The Middlebury Campus digitized

New old issues of The Middlebury Campus (1981-2008), now available via the Internet Archive!

Thanks to the efforts of Middlebury’s Digital Projects & Archives Librarian, Patrick Wallace, we are happy to announce that digitized issues of The Middlebury Campus dating from 1981 to 2008 are now available via the Internet Archive (go/ia).

These “new” issues of The Campus have been added to an ever-growing (over 3,000 items!) digital collection entitled “Middlebury College Newspapers and Magazines” available on the site. In addition to digitized copies of The Campus, the collection also includes The Undergraduate (precursor to The Campus), and Middlebury Magazine.

Visit go/ia to access digitized copies of The Campus and more!

Did you know digitized materials on the Internet Archive are full-text searchable? Simply click the bubble next to “Text contents” below the search bar. We searched for ourselves and found this mention in a Campus article from March 7, 2007:

We can’t help but agree with the author on this one.

Questions about accessing digitized materials? Email specialcollections@middlebury.edu

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.

MIDCAT search alerts

Are you interested in receiving automatic weekly updates for new library acquisitions? The easiest way to do this is to set up a preferred search in MIDCAT and select the option to Mark for Email. This generates a weekly email listing any new materials matching your search criteria. Note that if no new materials match your search terms for a given week you won’t receive an email. You may set up multiple search alerts, as needed.

For example, to receive notice of all new Jazz CDs I would: Continue reading

Monterey Terrorism Research and Education Program

One of the Internet resources featured in the latest issue of the Internet Scout Report, at http://scout.wisc.edu/Reports/ScoutReport/2010/scout-100402.html, is the Monterey Terrorism Research & Education Program, at http://www.miis.edu/academics/researchcenters/terrorism.  Based at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, the Monterey Terrorism Research & Education Program (MonTREP) “conducts in-depth research, assesses policy options, and engages in public education on issues relating to terrorism and international security.”  Their team of scholars looks at violence-prone extremist groups and their historical evolution, organization structure, and operational methods. Most people will want to look at their Islam, Islamism, and Politics in Eurasia Reports (IIPER).  The IIPER is a bimonthly compendium of news and analysis on politics involving Islam in the former Soviet Union.  The reports are written and edited by Dr. Gordon M. Hahn, and the series also accepts independent submissions as well. Visitors are welcome to browse through the reports here, and they may end up forwarding them to friends and associates. Finally, the site also includes a “News & Student Stories” area which reports on the activities of current members of the team, alumni, and students.