The new website for the Monterey Institute of International Studies went public on September 15th and is a combination of efforts from many areas of both Middlebury and MIIS, as well as brand new designs from White Whale Web Services. During this project, I got asked a lot, “So if you’re not building the new site, what are you up to?” And I thought I’d take this opportunity to answer that question, tell you how we developed the site, and give some previews of how we’re using what we learned to build the Middlebury web site.
Archive for October, 2009
Developing MIIS.edu for Drupal
October 30th, 2009 by Ian McBrideADA access to Main Lib Storrs Ave door for the general public.
October 30th, 2009 by Joseph WatsonStarting on Monday, November 1st, LIS will begin accepting applications from the general public who require ADA access to the Storrs Ave. doors at the Main Library. We are doing this because experts have determined that our current mode of access may not be in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Members of the public who do not have a relationship with the College may ask for an application at the Main Lib Circulation Desk. Applications will be accepted at the Circ Desk and forwarded to LIS Administration for processing. In order to qualify for access, applicants must show proof of having received a Disabled Persons placard or car registration from a state government. Qualified applicants will be issued an access card that will allow them to enter and exit the Storrs Ave. doors when the library is open to the public.
This is only for guests of the college. Students who need such access apply to the ADA office and faculty/staff apply to HR.
Staff will continue to let individuals in or out of the Storrs Ave doors on an as needed basis, but now regular users of the library who qualify will have the option of entering and exiting themselves without assistance from staff.
Doreen, Elin, and Joseph have been working with Facilities Services and Public Safety on the details of the arrangements for several months. While the solution that is being implemented is flawed, it is none-the-less something we must do. We do not expect there to be a significant number of qualified people receiving access cards.
There is a brochure at the Info Desk with general ADA info in it. Anyone who routinely encounters library users should take a minute to review that information.
Cataloging Project Completed for the Bailey Collection of Vermont Pamphlets
October 29th, 2009 by Hans Raum
Horace Ward Bailey was a native Vermonter who served the state in many capacities, from state Senator and U. S. Marshall to State Railroad Commissioner and member of the Champlain Tercentenary Commission, but he may well be best remembered for his collection of Vermont pamphlets, which “was one of the most complete in the country and included some of the rarest known specimens of the early days of the history of the State,” according to a memorial volume written by his friends.
After Mr. Bailey’s death in 1914, his collection of Vermont pamphlets was purchased from his estate for the library at Middlebury College. For many decades this collection of 130 bound volumes of pamphlets had a paper index, but was otherwise uncataloged and unused. Thanks to a recently completed ten-year project by the Catalog Department, the pamphlets have been cataloged, and the most unique and interesting pamphlets are being digitized as well.
The earliest pamphlet in the collection dates back to 1794 and other pamphlets date from the very early 1800’s to Bailey’s death in 1914 and cover a broad range of topics, from town histories to railroad annual reports and a report on the Dred Scott decision on slavery. As we celebrate the quadricentennial of the discovery of Lake Champlain by Samuel de Champlain in 1609, it is worth noting that there is an extensive collection of materials on the Lake Champlain and Hudson River Tercentenary among the Bailey Pamphlets.
All of the cataloged pamphlets (well over 900) can be found in Midcat by doing a title search on Bailey’s Collection of Vermont Pamphlets. The pamphlets are shelved in the locked portion of the Vermont Collection, which is in Special Collections.
Many thanks go to the staff of the Catalog Department for their hard work and tenacity in completing this ambitious project.
LIS Website Agenda Thurs 10/29
October 28th, 2009 by Carrie MacfarlaneAgenda 10/29/09
Timekeep, notetake, moderate, drive
Announcements
Permissions and workflow for LIS content
11/9 – deliverables on timeline
Web Development Workgroup bi-weekly update: the Third Edition
October 28th, 2009 by Adam FrancoThis is the third biweekly update from the Web Programming work-group. We are moving to a cyclical task and project planning work-flow in order to better prioritize our work. We acknowledge that requests will always come to us in a variety of ways and do not wish to burden members of the Middlebury community with overly formalized request processes. At the same time we also need to acknowledge that institutional and departmental priorities often shift over time and therefore we must have a work planning process that allows for flexibility that addresses the needs of the community, and maintains a healthy work environment for our staff.
LIS Annual Report: July 2008- June 2009
October 28th, 2009 by Michael RoyDear Colleagues,
Months in the making, our annual report is now available on-line at http://blogs.middlebury.edu/lis/files/2009/10/2009-LIS-Annual-Report.pdf for your reading pleasure. Thanks to Doreen for all of her hard work in putting this together, to all who contributed their words to this document, and to all for all the hard work that is documented within. It’s an impressive list of accomplishments!
We are already working on compiling next year’s report, with the hope that by writing throughout the year we won’t have to struggle to pull it all together at the end of the year.
– mike
Educause LIVE Web Seminar: The Tower and the Cloud—Higher Education in the Age of Cloud Computing
October 28th, 2009 by Doreen BernierLIS has registered for the Educause Live, “The Tower and the Cloud—Higher Education in the Age of Cloud Computing”, web seminar scheduled for November 13 at 1:00 pm. This event will be held in Library 145. For those of you who are interested in this topic, you are welcome to attend.
Description:
Education in the Age of Cloud Computing: Universities have served important functions in society for more than a thousand years. They have done so in part by creating places that promote reflection, discussion, discovery, and learning. For many people, the university-as-place is central to the purposes of the university. The university is also an idea and, increasingly, ideas—in the Internet—have enormous power to stimulate learning and discovery. Indeed, what many now describe as “Web 2.0” is a view that the web is evolving into a social environment that has the potential to extend the influence and reach of institutions and individuals. This talk will address the co-evolution of higher education and the Internet and will explore the roles of place, expertise, and even truth—in a world of abundant information and changing academic expectations.
Explore Related EDUCAUSE Resources: Follow the link(s) below for articles, conference materials, blog postings, and more in the EDUCAUSE Resource Center. Wherever you see the icon in the upper right of a page (make sure you’re logged in to see it), click on it to receive e-mail alerts when related resources are added.
Blog categories
October 28th, 2009 by Barbara MerzShould we change the blog categories in any way? Should “*The Essentials” remain the default?
Rational – it can be confusing to use the current categories. See what is categorized currently as essential and what is not.
Some suggestions:
1) *The Essentials is not needed. All readers should subscribe to the whole blog and pick what they’re interested in cp. reading sections of newspapers or subscribing to any other blog.
2) or should the default category just be changed to “Areas and Workgroups” i.e. LIS centric with action required to categorize as “*The Essentials”
3) and/or should “*The Essentials” be renamed “*The Essentials (all campus)”
LIS Website Agenda Wed 10/28
October 28th, 2009 by Elin WaagenAgenda 10/28/09
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CT Team Meeting Minutes 10/27/2009
October 27th, 2009 by Adam FrancoTopic 1: Segue v1 shutdown notice.
Team ok with Alex sending out the notice he presented. Team decided that the notice should be sent to all faculty rather than a limited group. Team decided that Segue 1 should be made unavailable at the end of Fall 2009 classes and not postponed until later.
Topic 2: CT Site IA.
Team looked at the Uses categories started by Alex. After much discussion and a few changes, we agreed to use the following IA as a starting point for our build-out:
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Strategic Decisions (slides)
October 27th, 2009 by Michael RoyAt last week’s LIS Strategic decisions, we presented the results of our strategic planning efforts, which are a set of four strategic areas that we have chosen to focus on. The a .pdf of the presentation can be found at http://blogs.middlebury.edu/lis/files/2009/10/LIS-Strategic-decisions.pdf , while a longer document that goes into greater detail about the process can be found at http://docs.google.com/View?id=dcst5th3_2chx2w2gq .
Please feel free to ask questions, make comments, and add to this by way of the comments on this blog.
Our next leg in this journey will be to set goals around these areas, which we will be doing starting immediately.
- mike
Staff Re-arrangements
October 27th, 2009 by Michael RoyAs we discussed at September’s staff meeting, we are in the process of re-arranging our work in order to continue to function with reduced staff. Some of this involves stopping or reducing services, and some of this involves asking people to pitch in and do work in other areas.
Here’s a list of what’s happened so far; we’ll post updates as we continue to re-arrange things. (Please add other re-arrangements to this post as comments if we have missed something!)
Media Services
* Mary Backus is serving as interim manager of media services and Lab management and support
Help Desk
* Alex Chapin, Mack Roark, Barbara Merz, and Chris Norris are doing shifts at the service request desk; we anticipate asking others to help out here in order to provide coverage and allow that group to continue to make progress on various projects.
Circulation Services
* Rich Church is helping out with opening the building in the morning.
* Dan Frostman, Todd Sturtevant, and Nancy Reynolds are now doing shifts in the Main Library.
Systems and Networks
* Dave Guertin will be become more involved in system administration/programming for central systems
We very much appreciate the flexibility that everyone has shown to date. As we discussed at the staff meeting, we are working on a viable long-term staffing plan this fall which will be informed by the results of the upcoming offers of early retirement and voluntary separation, and by conversations with students, faculty, and staff about reconfiguring and reducing services. We anticipate having to continue to make adjustments to this short-term plan, and will send updates on a regular basis so that we can all be working from a common understanding of who is responsible for what services.
Map of Wireless Coverage, October 2009
October 26th, 2009 by Michael Roy
LIS Makes the Front Page!
October 23rd, 2009 by Michael RoyWe made the front page of The Campus . The article focuses largely on student concerns about ending the 24 hour library hours during exams, and on printing. You can read it at http://www.middleburycampus.com/story/lis-cuts-24-hour-exam-week-access
LIS Website Information Architecture
October 22nd, 2009 by Jess IslerTeam, please find the new article here, and have at it!:
LIS Website Information Architecture
(Also linked from our team wiki page.)
FYI: This follows the IA documents White Whale created for other parts of the College web redo project. It’s primarily a high-level guide to page & subpage structure, not a detailed list of page contents (though there are some content recommendations in the notes sections). See middfiles:\orgs\WebMakeover\IA Documents for examples (I used Academics when creating the wiki page.)
LIS Web Team – Agenda Thurs 10/22
October 21st, 2009 by Elin WaagenAgenda Thurs 10/22
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