Tag Archives: Sep 12 08

“Scholar’s Rock”

In front of Scholars Rock, Dean Mike Roy, Barbara Youngman, Robert Youngman and Professor Colin Mackenzie

Submitted by Joseph Watson

For more than a year we have been working with the Museum of Art to select a location for a large “Scholar’s Rock” that the museum wanted to place in the Main Library. Happily, the rock was placed the the East Reading Room on the Upper Level last week. The existing ledge on the interior wall was redesigned by Ken Pohlman of the museum and reconstructed by Stark Mountain Woodcrafters. The resulting pediment enhances the room and presents the rock beautifully. The piece was given to the museum by Robert P. ’64 and Barbara P. Youngman who have given generously over the years to encourage the study and collection of Asian art. In the rocks’ descriptive label Prof. Colin Mackenzie writes “Appreciated for their contorted shapes and fissured surfaces, ornamental rocks have been collected in China since the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.). Small rocks were displayed on scholars’ desks, while the largest ones were incorporated into gardens. They thus played an ornamental role analogous to that of figural sculpture in the West. The connoisseurship of rocks was intimately bound up with philosophical notions of transformation and concepts such as yin (negative) and yang (positive), and xu (emptiness) and shi (solidity). Rocks from Lingbi are prized for their fantastic forms.”
The Youngmans recently stopped by the library to view the stone and Mike had a chance to thank them for their generosity.

And speaking of art in general, the Museum has been adding and removing objects all summer. The revised list of art in the building is available in a brochure at the Info Desk and will also be available on the web soon. Also on the web: http://www.middlebury.edu/arts/capp/mural/mural.htm and http://www.middlebury.edu/arts/capp/exhibits/

And remember, temporary displays of art (or whatever) can be set up in the Main Lib. For more information on what’s available see go/lis?display.

And on an unrelated note– Announcing a new section of the LIS Wikis devoted to Facilities Concerns: The content is fairly brief at this point, but will expand over time. If you have topics that you think would be useful to have included please let me know. Check it out at go/wikis and select LIS then LIS Facility Issues. The best part is, it’s searchable!

Digital Media

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.

MIIS VHS Video Collection is Searchable Online Now

Submitted by Peter Liu, MIIS Library Director

For many years, the Institute’s more than 2,000 VHS video collection has not been included in the library’s Online Public Access Catalog or OPAC until recently. As a part of the MIIS and MIDD libraries’ integration process, a joint project of MIIS A/V collection enhancement to support instruction was launched during this summer. The primary purpose of the project is to convert the existing A/V Center VHS video data of Microsoft Excel into a set of the library MAchine Readable Cataloging records or often known as the MARC standards. The project intended to leverage Middlebury cataloging expertise, make a full use of the recent updated Millennium server’s capacities, preserve all useful data and present in a simple and web searchable format. After several months of hard work of librarians on both MIIS and MIDD campuses, especially through timely guidance and collaborations with Terry Simpkins and his talent cataloging staff at Middlebury, the MIIS library’s OPAC (http://monti.miis.edu) is now containing more than 2,000 VHS videocassettes from the A/V Center. As a result, MIIS faculty and students are now able to find, identify, select, and obtain A/V materials just like they search any printing books and periodicals. The project has greatly enhanced the usability of A/V collection on and beyond campus. A portion of the regularly purchased A/V materials of documentary videos, performances, performance art, and feature films will be adding into our library holdings on the largest union catalog of the OCLC’s WorldCat. Those A/V materials can be checked out at A/V Center for one day or 24 hours as usual. They will not be lent to other libraries except to Middlebury through interlibrary loan in the near future.

Copyright note:
The video cassettes and other A/V materials in the library are subject to the Revised Copyright Act of 1976, Title 17 of the U.S. Code, Sections 101-810, which took effect on January 1, 1978. The library prohibits the use of these materials in any way that violates Federal or State laws.

LIS Welcomes Jim Beauchemin

Submitted by Mary Backus

I am very pleased to announce that Jim Beauchemin has accepted the position of User Support and Services Manager.

Jim comes to us from GE Healthcare where he has been a Principal Systems Software Consultant and a Lead Systems Software Consultant. Jim brings both management experience and a strong technical background to this position. He earned a Bachelors of Science degree in Computer Information Systems and a Masters of Science in Managing Innovation and Information Technology from Champlain College. Jim lives in Vergennes, and will join our team on October 6th.

I am looking forward to having him on the team, and the contributions that I am confident he will bring.