Library & Information Services » Academic Consulting Services

Preview of Next Version of Shadowbox Theme

Alex Chapin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:58:02 +0000

I attended part of the LIS website team meeting today and gave a presentation of the ShadowBox theme and some of the new features that will be available in the next version including updates to author pages, more custom header options and most importantly, higher contrast text in comment fields. I also gave a preview of some new ShadowBox variations based on the new college website design. Below is a screencast from that meeting:

Towards a Unified Curricular Technology UX

Alex Chapin — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:10:06 +0000

I recently created a version of the ShadowBox theme for Measure, an instance of Moodle used at Middlebury for online assessments. As a starting point, I used the Anomaly Theme Pack, created by the Patrick Malley, the Themes Manager for Moodle.org and the Creative Director of the NewSchool Learning design shop. I merged some of the styles and markup Patrick had developed with code from the WordPress ShadowBox theme to create a similar look and feel to the WordPress version. This is a great example of the power of open source to build upon and synthesize the work of others (much of this theme designers current work in no longer open source…)

Screenshot of Measure ShadowBox theme header

The goal is to create a more unified user experience (UX) and make it easy for faculty and students to move from one platform to another. You’ll noticed that Measure has links to WordPress and Segue in the upper right corner. These same links can be put in the same place on WordPress blogs that use ShadowBox. I’d also like to put these same links on all Segue sites to help with the transition away from Segue to other platforms.

As new platforms are introduced, they can be added in much the same way as Google Apps lists its various applications.

For more information about Measure, see the Measure Blog.

Seminar for Academic Professionals

Alex Chapin — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:07:31 +0000

As libraries and technology services merge, librarians and technologists also need to merge, at least what they know. Mike Roy and David Wedaman (Brandeis) have organized a seminar whose objective is to develop a curriculum for academic information professionals. Librarians and technologists from Middlebury, Brandeis and Mount Holyoke are currently defining that curriculum through a series of presentations that make up the MBMH Seminar.

Joy Pile and I, along with Chrissa Godbout from Mount Holyoke and Karrie Peterson from Brandeis gave the first presentation of the seminar on “Blending Education and Entertainment” in late October. A summary of the presentation is posted on the MBMH Seminar blog and slides are available from Google Docs. Bryan Carson along with Mary Glackin from Mount Holyoke, gave a presentation this afternoon on the topic of “Do Students Learn Differently?”

ShadowBox Theme Introductory Screencast

Alex Chapin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:54:28 +0000

I made a ShadowBox theme introductory screencast during a presentation of the theme to Academic Consulting Services. This screencast describes some of the WordPress UI challenges I was trying to solve with this theme. The first was finding a consistent way to display the log in link and information about a given user’s role on a blog. I also wanted to create a UI for setting theme colors and layout and other options. Finally I wanted to more consistently map some of the blog editing UI onto the blog itself so people could more easily add new posts or edit existing posts.

(click on the button to view video in full screen mode)

Am working on a new release of ShadowBox that includes the display of category and tag RSS links, custom author pages and more header options. For more information, see ShadowBox Changelog. Contact me know if you would like to see a preview of this new version.

Cataloging Project Completed for the Bailey Collection of Vermont Pamphlets

Hans Raum — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:50:22 +0000

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.

Data.gov

Hans Raum — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:08:36 +0000

Data.gov is a government website launched earlier this year to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. Data.gov provides access to data in three ways: through the “raw” data catalog, the tool catalog and the geodata catalog. Data.gov helps users to find, access, and download non-sensitive Government data and tools in a variety of formats. Some of the many topics covered include the following: births, deaths, marriages and divorces; energy and utilities; geography and the environment; health and nutrition; income, expenditures, poverty and wealth; labor force, employment and earnings; natural resources, population, prices; social and human services; and transportation.

These datasets are potentially useful to students in a broad range of majors in the sciences and social sciences and potential uses as additional datasets are added.

http://data.gov

LISterine Workshop: Capture

Carrie Macfarlane — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:26:35 +0000

Posted by Bryan Carson and Carrie Macfarlane

The next LISterine Workshop (LIS Technology, Endeavors, and Resources in Need of Explanation) has been scheduled. On Thursday, September 17, from 12:30-1:30 pm in Library 145, Alex Chapin will present Capture. Watch your inbox for an invitation.

Want to present a workshop? Want someone else to present? Vote for it in the LISterine Feedback Forum!

GIS Team Year-end Report

Carrie Macfarlane — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:40:34 +0000

Here is our year-end report on providing geospatial support from the Media Lab (2008-09_GISreport-LISannual). As you know, we were transitioning from 2 years of full-time intern support. This report describes how the transition went.

Vote on LISterine Workshops

Carrie Macfarlane — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:20:04 +0000

We’re planning next year’s program for LISterine workshops , and we want your help. What do YOU want to learn? Use the LISterine Feedback Forum to suggest and vote on workshop topics. You get 10 votes–so vote early and often! You can come back later and change your votes, too.

A note to the specialists in the audience: If you see a topic you could present on, please expect that we’ll come after you if that topic rises to the top of the list! Vote accordingly.

Visit it now: LISterine Feedback Forum

LISterine Workshops

Doreen Bernier — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:35:46 +0000

Submitted by Carrie Macfarlane

We won’t be offering LISterine workshops for the remainder of the summer, but don’t let that prevent you from freshening your professional perspective. Stay Fresh! Here’s how…