June 10th was the opening day of “Exh!bited”, the LIS staff arts and crafts exhibit.

Special thanks to all the LIS artisans for their truly beautiful contributions. This was a great opportunity to showcase our special talents and interests and bring the community together – and also surprise and delight users and visitors.

The opening reception was graced with beautiful live music, courtesy of Dan Frostman.

Early arrivals enjoyed the only edible craft piece - chocolate dipped strawberries.

Included below are some photos from the reception.

The exhibit organizers, Morgan, Doreen and Elin, would like to thank Joseph for his invaluable assistance in setting up the space. Thanks also to Scott and Rachel for their contributions, and with thanks to all for taking the time out from your busy schedules to assist in bringing this exhibit to life.

The exhibit will run until June 26th.

NELINET

June 10, 2009

“Rainy Day” Edition

JUST ADDED!
NELINET IT Conference 2009: Open Source in Your Library
October 9, 2009 – Olin College, Needham, MA

Conference Cost for Unlimited Members: $85   (Middlebury is an unlimited member)

Attention Accidental Webmasters!
Accidental Webmaster Series: Just Enough MySQL – Just Enough PHP

Starts July 14^th – ONLINE SERIES
In this six-week series, you will learn just enough PHP and MySQL to explore, understand and implement dynamic tools and content. Each week, you will take part in a 1.5-hour online lecture and discussion to introduce new concepts and techniques. Between online live meetings, you will work at your own pace to practice what you’ve learned, share ideas with colleagues and receive individualized guidance and feedback in Moodle, our open source online learning management system.

Workshop Series cost: $150

Big Events!

FREE SEMINAR
How to Stay Relevant in Your Institution
June 24, 2009 – NELINET, Southborough, MA

CQ Researcher is one of the resources the library subscribes to.  This week’s topic seems very relevant and timely for us. Quoting from their email announcement:

“Future of Books” by Sarah Glazer, May 29, 2009 Will traditional print books disappear?

The migration of books to electronic screens has been accelerating with the introduction of mobile reading on Kindles, iPhones and Sony Readers and the growing power of Google’s Book Search engine. Even the book’s form is mutating as innovators experiment with adding video, sound and computer graphics to text. Some fear a loss of literary writing and reading, others of the world’s storehouse of knowledge if it all goes digital. A recent settlement among Google, authors and publishers would make more out-of-print books accessible online, but some worry about putting such a vast trove of literature into the hands of a private company. So far, barely 1 percent of books sold in the United States are electronic. Still, the economically strapped publishing industry is under pressure to do more marketing and publishing online as younger, screen-oriented readers replace today’s core buyers – middle-aged women.

• Will the Google Book Search settlement restrict public access to digital books?
• Will traditional print books disappear from the marketplace?
• Will literary reading and writing survive online?

To read the Overview of this week’s report, click here.
To view this week’s entire report on CQ Researcher Online, click here.

Please join us at next week’s workshop called “Looking at Library Research.” It’s part of the CTLR Pedagogy Roundtable Series.

Thursday, June 11
1:30 – 2:30 pm
Looking at Library Research, Library 230
Presenters: Brenda Ellis, Joe Toth, Andrew Wentink
Conveners: Carrie Macfarlane and Terry Simpkins

Has the way you do research changed over the past few years? Have you noticed a change in the research your students are doing? Finding information has become easier than ever, but sifting out the best information remains a challenge even for experienced researchers. In this roundtable we will examine some of the changes in the resources libraries provide and in how they provide them, as well as discuss how these mesh (or don’t!) with student and faculty expectations.

Heartfelt thanks to all of you in LIS for your good wishes and for Wednesday’s lovely send-off breakfast for the four of us!  I feel fortunate to have been able to work with you all these years.  With fond best wishes, Jean Simmons

Thanks to Jack Cuneo for leading this week’s LISterine Workshop on mashups, and thanks to all who attended.  Thanks also to Scott Witt for recording the session!  If you weren’t able to attend, you can watch the video; there’s a link in the LISterine blog.

1) LIS Announcements – The group reviewed and edited emails to be distributed to LIS regarding ERP participants, “stopping things” and about the Segue sunset.  We agreed these will be sent as  separate emails.  Mike will also send a separate email to ERP participants to let them know that a general announcement will be distributed.

2) ERP celebrations – The college will be holding a college-wide celebration for ERP folks sometime in May or early June.   We discussed perhaps having some smaller LIS gatherings as well, since the larger one may feel slightly impersonal. Timing is an issue, since retirements are happening anytime from June to November.  Carol will be coordinating.

3) Goals/Projects – We talked more about what should happen to ideas coming out of the advisory group meetings, how we can keep faculty informed, and how we process them internally.  Shel will meet with Carrie Macfarlane and Bryan Carson to review the list of items compiled from this year’s advisory group meetings and discuss plans for tracking these ideas and their outcomes.  Jim Beauchemin should also be invited to this meeting.

4) Project Directory – Mike and Chris Norris are beginning work on this.  We talked a bit about the difference between a goal and a project, with a fair amount of semantic wrangling over nomenclature, but eventually we all came to the common understanding that for each LIS goal, there will be a series of projects and or other discrete steps enacted in support of achieving the goal.

5) MIIS/Midd new programs – Jeff is gathering information on  frequency and types of formal (as well as occasional/informal) communications between Midd and MIIS library and IT staff, at the request of Dave Donahue (who is tracking this for all areas across campus).  As Monterey and Middlebury explore joint academic program offerings, we’ll need to be assess how these will be supported by and/or otherwise impact LIS.

As part of the run-up to the publication of the issue, which will take the form of an anthology of the best writing and resources that contemplate the future of various topics, we’ve set up a delicious account and are crowdsourcing the collection of readings.

If you happen to use delicious and have bookmarked particularly good readings and resources on topics such as the future of reference, the future of the book, the future of the web, and so on, please feel free to suggest materials by tagging them for:academiccommons. (There is a brief description of how this works also on-line.)

Thanks so far to Mike Lynch for suggesting some good materials on the future of reference.

– mike