Category Archives: Library Spotlight

24/7 exam period at the Libraries

The Davis Family Library will be providing extended hours during the last week of classes and the exam period.

24/7 hours will start at 7:30 am on Tuesday, 5/8 and will end at 8 pm on Tuesday, 5/22. Bring your ID – card access is required between 11 pm and 7:30 am (9 am on Saturday and Sunday). Guest passwords for computer access will not be issued between the hours of 11 pm and 8 am.

Armstrong Library will have regular hours during this period, with later closing times on Friday 5/18 and Saturday 5/19.

Check here for up to date hours at all Libraries.

Download library ebooks to the Kindle Fire

In addition to the iPad, iPhone, Android devices, and Nook, tens of thousands of our ebooks can be downloaded directly to the Kindle Fire with the free Bluefire app.

Here are the steps:

  1. With the Bluefire app on your Kindle Fire, access our ebooks at go/ebooks.
  2. If you don’t have the Blurefire app installed, our ebook site automatically links to Bluefire instructions for download.
  3. Once the Bluefire app is installed and authorized, click ‘download’ and your ebook will download and open.
  4. You can also transfer downloaded content from your PC or Mac to your Kindle with Adobe Digital Editions.
  5. We’ve got step-by-step directions on downloading ebooks to your desktop here. Or, if you’d rather not download, you can read ebooks online through the Kindle browser.

Enjoy, and look out for LIS’s very own Kindle Fires, available at a library circulation desk near you. (Sometime this summer we hope.)

Discover new books, without stepping foot in the library

Though we love to see you in the library, we’ve added a new website where you can view a changing sampling of new books, DVDs, and other materials as we acquire them for the College’s Libraries. Check out our new feature and then check those books out and start reading. You’ll have to come to the library for that.



Capitalism Nature Socialism (new research journal available)

Capitalism Nature Socialism is now available from 1997 through the current issue.

From its website:

“CNS is a journal of ecosocialism. We welcome submissions on red-green politics and the anti-globalization movement; environmental history; workplace labor struggles; land/community struggles; political economy of ecology; and other themes in political ecology… labor, feminist, and environmental movements, and theories of political ecology and radical democracy…”

Browse Capitalism Nature Socialism and set up an email alert to be notified when new issues are published. Capitalism Nature Socialism is also available via Summon (go/Summon) and the Journals A-Z list.

A facelift for Middlebury’s Digital Collections archive

The Middlebury Libraries pulled back the curtain today to reveal a new face for our Digital Collections archive. Please visit and search through thousands of historic books, postcards, photographs, maps, illustrations, manuscripts, and recorded campus lecture videos from the holdings of our College Archives, Special Collections, and Vermont Collection. Here are a few to whet your apetite for our rich and varied digital archive. Enjoy!

View of the Battell Block, ca. 1905

Cyanotype of the Emma Willard House, circa 1890

Vermont Marble Works, Middlebury, VT, date unknown

 

International Women’s Day (at the Library)

Today, March 8th, Middlebury College Library celebrates 102 years of International Women’s Day. (And March is also Women’s History Month, so what the heck, let’s celebrate all month long.) The U.N. has a helpful timeline detailing the history of this day and the theme of International Women’s Day 2012: Empower Rural Women – End Hunger and Poverty.

Women's Day 1914, Germany

The Library has endless ways to celebrate women, so today, we’ll name but a few. Please add your own comments below and add to the festivities.

Visit our Women’s and Gender Studies (WAGS) Research Guide

Search Women and Social Movements a research archive organized around the history of women in social movements in the US between 1600 and 2000.

Listen to Biophilia, by Björk, the Icelandic pop star, or anything by Björk, for that matter. Request her CDs at the Davis Library’s circulation desk.

Watch the first season of Xena, Warrior Princess, the French film Séraphine, about a self-taught, middle-age painter, or How to Be a Woman, a compilation of school classroom films of the 1940s-1980s including Let’s make a sandwich (1950) and Why study home economics (1955).

Stream an audio recording by Sofia Gubaidulina, the ground-breaking Russian/Tatar composer known for combining bongos, cymbals, tam-tams, among other percussion instruments.

Or simply browse Midcat for books, DVDs, and more, all about: Women.

Sign up for LIS Website Testing!

Students, Faculty, and Staff: Would you like the opportunity to help LIS improve its website and make it work for you?

If you agree to help, we’ll observe and record you performing some tasks on the website.

Sessions will be scheduled from Monday, February 27 through Thursday, March 8 in the Davis Family Library. If you’re interested, please sign up by Thursday February 23rd (sign-ups are now closed), and we’ll respond with a confirmation. Details are below.

The session will take no longer than 45 minutes (15 minutes for explanation and summary, and 30 minutes for testing activities). We’ll ask you to perform specific tasks and we’ll use your responses in our work to improve the site. Your participation will be strictly used within LIS staff and not shared with any outside organization.

Thank you for taking this opportunity to help LIS improve its web presence!

Usability Surveys on LIS Web Pages

The LIS web team is at it again! In a effort to improve the user experience on the LIS website we are conducting usability testing. For a few weeks you’ll find obtrusive mint green boxes in the corners of the Library, Helpdesk, and LIS pages. These are very short usability surveys. Simply click on “Give Feedback” and then answer each question by clicking the location you’d go to find various pieces of information on each page. Each survey contains only a handful of questions so please participate when you have a moment.