Library hours over the holiday break

Carmichael Library will close on Wednesday, December 19 at 5:00 p.m. The library will reopen on Wednesday, January 2, 2013 at 8:00 a.m.

Extended Hours for Fall 2012

Original Image from Milner Archives, graphic work by Mike Price

Your campus library will again offer extended hours for students on the week before finals and during final exam week. The extended hours will begin this coming Monday, December 3.

Week Before Finals Extended Hours

December  3-8

Monday, Dec. 3                8:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m.

Tuesday, Dec. 4                8:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m.

Wednesday, Dec. 5           8:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m.

Thursday, Dec. 6               8:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m.

Friday. Dec. 7                    8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Saturday, Dec. 8                10:00 a.m – 5:00 p.m.

Finals Week Extended  Hours 

December  9-14

Sunday, Dec. 9th                2:00 p.m. – 2:00 a.m.  

Monday, Dec. 10               8:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m.

Tuesday, Dec. 11               8:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m.

Wednesday Dec. 12           8:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m.

Thursday, Dec. 13                8:00 a.m. – 11:00 p.m.

Friday, Dec. 14                   8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Stay tuned to our Facebook Page for updates on how were helping you cope with Finals Week. Good luck, students!

ARTstor Updates

Carmichael Library has a subscription to ARTstor Digital Library, a nonprofit resource that provides more than one million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences with an accessible suite of software tools for teaching and research. ARTstor collections are consistently enhanced and new collections are added. See below for a list of the highlights from 2012:

• Collections grew rapidly, with nearly 160,000 new images released from 31 new and expanded collections in the past 12 months, including the first 750 of a projected 7,000 from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; a second release of 4,000 from the permanent collections of French museums from the Réunion des Musées Nationaux; more than 46,000 images of architecture and sites from ART on FILE and the Society of Architectural Historians' SAHARA project; more than 4,000 images of archaeological and ethnographic objects from the Peabody Museum of Natural History; 23,000 historical photographs from the Museum of the City of New York; and much more
• Reached agreements for nearly 30 new collections from contributors such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Corcoran Gallery of Art; Panos Pictures; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Romare Bearden Foundation; the Renaissance Society; and many others. ARTstor has also reached a new agreement with international affiliates of the Artists Rights Society (ARS) covering nearly 10,000 new artists from six countries, substantially expanding the Digital Library's modern and contemporary artworks for subscribers. For a complete list of collections, see artstor.org/collection
• In addition to being accessible on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, ARTstor Mobile is now available on Android-powered devices; the Digital  Library is now supported in Chrome browsers; the Offline Image Viewer (OIV) is now available for OS X 10.7 Lion; ARTstor is now collaborating with the Primo Central Index and other discovery services; and new instructional videos, with subtitles in multiple languages, have been added to ARTstor's YouTube channel.
• ARTstor has launched four Architecture and Design Topics Image Groups, carefully curated to include dozens of images of seminal works taught in introductory-level architecture and design courses. Subjects include "Architecture and the Built Environment," "Architecture to 1900: Plans and Models," "Design and Decorative Arts," and "Gardens and Landscape Architecture." To see the full list, visit the ARTstor Digital Library, and click on Organize > Open Image Groups, then open Global Folders > Featured Groups.

Oxford Dictionary Word of the Year

Oxford University Press announced today that the Word of the Year in the UK is omnishambles.

Originally used in the British political comedy television series The Thick of It, omnishambles has gained momentum throughout 2012 as a word used to describe a comprehensively mismanaged situation, characterized by a shambolic string of blunders.

Check out the OUP blog to learn more about omnishambles and the runner-ups. 

Oxford Dictionaries USA also announced today that the Word of the Year in the United States is GIF. 

GIF  verb to create a GIF file of (an image or video sequence, especially relating to an event): he GIFed the highlights of the debate

Check out the Oxford Dictionaries USA blog for more information about the origin, pronunciation, and spelling of GIF.

Geocaching 101 @ Carmichael Library

Photo/graphic arts by Joel Bullock

Learn about geocaching at Carmichael Library! Are you new to geocaching? Heard about it and want to learn more? Tried to find a couple of caches and want to learn some secrets?

Spend an hour or so with other cachers at Carmichael Library at the University of Montevallo to learn the basics and a little bit more. Bobby Hall (known in cacher circles as GameForTravel) will present Geocaching 101 at 7:00 p.m.

Mr. Hall's presentation will cover:

• Basic history of the Global Positioning System
• Description of geocaching
• How to hide and find a cache
• Basics of geocaching.com
• What to take on a cache run
• Types and sizes of caches
• Basic usage of a GPSr
• Logging your activities

This class was created on behalf of the Birmingham Geocachers group on meetup.com. Everyone is invited; regardless of caching experience, membership in the meetup group or any other affiliations! Those with a few (or many) caches under their belt are welcome to contribute their experience, expertise, stories, advice, jokes, techniques, skills, knowledge, and bug bite avoidance strategies.

In addition to the program, the library will provide refreshments. We hope to see you here next Tuesday evening! Let us and your friends know you're coming by connecting with us on Facebook.

Digital Humanities

Several of the library faculty and staff attended THATCamp at Vanderbilt University last week in Nashville.  At the same time the Country Music Awards where given out, scholars in literature and languages, librarians, historians, and even a mathematician gathered at the Vanderbilt Curb Center ready to work together to learn the tools and pedagogy from fellow scholars doing hands-on digital work in the humanities. THATCamps are about Technology and Humanities.  I've learned a lot about digital humanities and met a lot of interesting people in the field. The conversation about the role of the digital humanities continues to provoke interesting discussions. The Los Angeles Review of Books provides some recent insight into the arguments. Stephen Marche's essay Literature is not Data: Against Digital Humanities is up first but then In Defense of Data: Responses to Stephen Marche's : "Literature is not Data" by Scott Seliseke and Holger S. Syme takes Marche on with a one-two knockout. I hope you take the time to read each essay. Comments are welcome.

Montevallo Ghost Stories

February 6, 1908 Birmingham Age-Herald

For most, Halloween is a time for ghost stories and folklore. The University of Montevallo is no different. Our campus has many stories, sightings, and unsettling accounts of massacres, deadly accidents, and other macabre events. Each year, during fall semester, Carmichael Library is inundated with curious, adventure-seeking students interested in these spooky tales. Eager paranormal enthusiasts may be happy to know that Condie's door is on display near the Ask Here desk. Additional displays offer information on this tale, other campus ghost stories, and the history behind the folklore.     

Main Hall

Packets of UM Ghost Stories are available for check out at the circulation desk. 

For more information on the history behind some of these stories, please visit the Milner Archives page on Facebook. Please "like" the page and receive updates on this and other bits of Montevallo history.

  

Introducing the Virtual Reference Shelf

Carmichael Library's new Virtual Reference Shelf organizes online reference titles by academic subject to make it easy for you to start research.  The resources are reputable titles from Oxford Reference, but their online format makes them easily searchable. 

Need to brush up on your Foucault?  Try A Dictionary of Critical Theory.  Need quick facts about Brazil?  Look at A Guide to Countries of the World.  Having trouble picking a topic for your U.S. History paper?  Browse The Oxford Companion to United States History.

Find the Virtual Reference Shelf under "Resources" on the Carmichael Library Homepage.  Happy searching!

There's an App for That! EBSCOhost on Android & iPhone

Hey!  Did you know that EBSCOhost has an app for iPhone and Android? Here are the steps to set it up:

1. Go to any of Carmichael Library’s EBSCOhost databases (i.e., Business  Source Complete) and scroll to the bottom of the page and click the link “New: EBSCOhost iPhone and Android Applications”
2. Enter your email address and submit, you will then receive an email from EBSCOhost with further instructions
3. Make sure your mobile device is connected to the University’s wireless and then open the email on your device
4. Download the app and then click on the “authentication key” link in the email. The app should open and you can begin searching and saving articles!

Carmichael Adds Films on Demand

Adding to a growing collection of online streaming audio and video resources, your campus library has acquired Films on Demand, a multi-disciplinary collection of some 6,000 titles. The Films on Demand collection includes quality video content from over 30 publishers including PBS, Meridian, Cambridge Educational, the BBC, National Geographic and more. In addition to the material already available in this database, about 600 titles are added annually. Most of the videos in the Films on Demand collection are closed-captioned.

To gain access to Films on Demand, students, staff, and faculty may go to the A-Z Databases and Resources List on our website. We'll be posting more details on how to use this new collection in the weeks ahead. In the meantime you find the answers to some questions at the On Demand Help Center. Also, feel free to direct technical questions about this database to me, Jason Cooper.

Happy viewing!

Instruction Workshop Series: Managing Research with Zotero

Citation is easily the least-loved step in the research process.  It can feel mechanical and tedious after the creative, enriching experience of developing a research question and reading and writing about it.  Luckily, there is Zotero: a free tool to help you collect and organize citations, choose the correct citation style (APA, MLA, etc), generate different types of citations (footnotes, bibliographies, etc), and even collaborate with classmates and colleagues. 

Carmichael Library is presenting a Zotero workshop on Tuesday, October 16 at 5 pm in the EBSCO Classroom.  Come learn how to install and use Zotero for your research projects.  No RSVP is needed.  Contact Lauren Wallis or Andrew Battista with questions.  We hope to see you there!

Founders' Day, October 12, 1896

It's that time of year again. Founders' Day is upon us and, this year, the Annie Crawford Milner Archives and Special Collections looks back on the earliest days of the Alabama Girls' Industrial School. With an old college building (Reynolds Hall), Lyman Hall (now Saylor House), a "healthy, epidemic free climate," an offer of free coal, and list of other enticements, Captain Henry Clay Reynolds and Judge Edward Sherman Lyman were able to sway Governor William Calvin Oates and the newly appointed Board of Trustees to consider Montevallo as the location for this new school. At the June 24, 1895 Board meeting, Montevallo "wins" the school on the 13th round of voting, narrowly defeating Jasper. Julia Tutwiler is named president.

The Governor and Board

Tutwiler and a small faction of Trustees wanted to open the doors in fall 1897 while the majority of Board members aimed for 1896. The vote to open sooner rather than later caused Tutwiler to resign her position. Meanwhile, Captain Reynolds worked tirelessly to recruit faculty and secure housing for potential students. At the September 18,1896 meeting, Reynolds presented the Board with a slate of faculty members for consideration. The candidates were quickly approved and Reynolds was asked if he'd like to serve as president. Less than a month later, the Alabama Girls Industrial School opened its doors.

To see more photos and to keep up with happenings in the archives, please visit our website and "like" our Facebook page.

Editing with SlideRocket: Open Workshop

There are several classes across the University of Montevallo community this fall that are doing some kind of video project.  For example, students in SOC 240 Social Problems are investigating several issues, like quality of fast food and bad driving, while students in COMS 102 are filming themselves as they deliver a "big ideas" talk in the vein of TED Talks.

Making great videos is like any other form of composition.  The process requires you to think about how you want to structure your evidence, how you can reach an audience, and how you will choose to present information.  It's good to get as much practice with principles of editing as possible, no matter which software or platform you end up using.

This Tuesday evening, October 9 at 7:00 PM, the Carmichael Library will be hosting a video editing workshop in the EBSCO Classroom on the ground floor.  The workshop is open to anyone who is interested in video production.  Mike Price of the Digital Media Lab will be featuring ways to develop content and make dynamic videos with SlideRocket.  Some classes have been invited to use SlideRocket, while others may plan to use different editing software.

You are welcome to bring your own computer, or you can use the computers we have in the lab.  Regardless of what kind of video you plan to make, you will learn something in this workshop.  We hope to see you there.

Historical Life Raft Debate, October 9

The Historical Life Raft Debate is a separate event from the annual Founders' Day Life Raft Debate. For those interested in UM's original Life Raft Debate, this event will take place on Founders' Day, Thursday, October 11, at 7:00 p.m. in Palmer Hall.

Since 1998, The Life Raft Debate has been a University of Montevallo and Founders' Day tradition. Out of this has grown a new student-led event that will take place in Carmichael Hall on Tuesday, October 9, at 8:00 p.m.

For the uninitiated, we take this explanation of the tradition from the official Life Raft Debate website:

In the Life Raft Debate, we imagine that there has been a nuclear war, and the survivors (the audience) are setting sail to rebuild society from the ground up. There is a group of academic-types vying to get on the raft, and only one seat is left. Each [speaker] has to argue that his or her discipline is the one indispensable area of study that the new civilization will need to flourish. At the end of the debating, the audience votes and the lucky winner climbs aboard, waving goodbye to the others. 

Each [speaker] gets to give an introductory account of his or her discipline, then give a brief rebuttal to the others, and, finally, the audience votes all but one panelist off.

This year, a Historical Life Raft Debate will feature five student actors who will argue for a historical figurehead. The disciplines and historical figures represented will be:

• English, Jane Austen
• Mathematics, Alan Turing
• Psychology, Wilhelm Wundt
• Philosophy, Baruch Spinoza
• Science, Nikola Tesla

Student speeches will contain both facts and inaccuracies. The audience will be given transcripts of the debate and must first determine which information is true or false before they can vote for their discipline/historical figure.

Students in attendance will also be invited to present a short argument for their personal discipline.

Harbert Writing Center Consultants in the Library

The Harbert Writing Center is teaming with Carmichael Library, the Learning Enrichment Center, and the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs to pilot an effort to provide extended hours for the Writing Center's services here in Carmichael Hall.

Get Writing Help Tonight

@ your library

Today, October 2^nd from 7:00 - 10:00 p.m., consultants from the Harbert Writing Center will be available on the ground floor of Carmichael Library to work with students who are working on papers. Consultants can advise — and love to advise — writers at any stage of their writing processes.

Related on our blog:

• Harbert Writing Center hours for Fall 2012

October is Information Literacy Awareness Month

This October marks the third anniversary of President Barack Obama's Proclamation of National Information Literacy Awareness Month.  In a well-crafted press release, President Obama explains that the imperative to be information literate is one that is tied to our responsibilities as citizens in a participatory democracy.  He writes,

Though we may know how to find the information we need, we must also know how to evaluate it. Over the past decade, we have seen a crisis of authenticity emerge. We now live in a world where anyone can publish an opinion or perspective, whether true or not, and have that opinion amplified within the information marketplace. At the same time, Americans have unprecedented access to the diverse and independent sources of information, as well as institutions such as libraries and universities, that can help separate truth from fiction and signal from noise.

Obama's Proclamation has resonated in the library world, and in the community at the University of Montevallo.  We are entering the second major year of our Quality Enhancement Plan, a multi-year focus on information literacy in all phases of the curriculum.  As Montevallo's Information Literacy Librarian, I've begun to think about exactly what it means to be information literate students and citizens in the digital age.

Today, information literacy is about much more than finding and evaluating sources.  It's about combining these critical faculties with our ability to manage our time and focus our attention.  We are limited by the extent to which we can distil massive amounts of information and parlay what we learn about into direct action.  Barack Obama's remarks at the 2010 commencement of Hampton University present the challenges today's learners face very clearly.  Information is now a distraction that imposes on the foundation of American democracy.

This month, I along with several of the Carmichael Librarians will be blogging about Information Literacy. We'll have a couple of campus-wide information literacy events to help us remember this month.  In the meanwhile, let us know what you do to think about information literacy this month.  We're always looking for ways to open conversations.

Instruction Series: Organizing the Internet with RSS Readers

Carmichael Library’s Instruction Series continues with a workshop on Organizing the Internet with RSS Readers.  RSS Readers allow users to manage online content such as blogs, podcasts, Twitter feeds, and academic journal alerts.  Participants will practice creating an RSS feed, adding content, developing an organizational pattern using folders, and sharing RSS feeds on social media platforms.

The RSS Workshop will take place on Tuesday, September 18 at 5 pm in the EBSCO Room.  Contact Andrew Battista with questions. 

Fall 2012 Technology Workshop Instruction Series Announced

The Carmichael Library would like to announce the Fall 2012 Technology Workshop Instruction Series.  Visit the Initiatives section of our new website to find the full schedule of events and learn more about what we'll do.  The first event is Wednesday, September 12, at 5:30 PM.  Andrew Battista will lead a session on Informed Blogging:  Basics of Wordpress and Blogger.  There's no need to make a reservation; simply come, learn, and practice.

Instruction in the EBSCO Classroom

At the University of Montevallo, many instructors are beginning to bring blogs and online writing into the classroom experience in new ways.  Now, more than ever, writing for an online audience is a fundamental literacy that is expected of students in almost every quarter of the liberal arts curriculum.  Here's just a sample of blogs done by students in UM classes:

• Curation Culture
• Digital Rhetoric
• National Parks, Wilderness and the American Imagination
• Sabotage Novel
• Montevallo Summer Harvest

These blogs each feature a complex technical approach to digital rhetoric and writing. If you've been asked to write for an online audience, present work on a blog, or if you are just interested in formulating ideas for a blog of your own. You'll want to come to this workshop.  Direct all questions to Andrew Battista.

Labor Day hours for the library

Carmichael Library will be closed over the Labor Day weekend.  Regular semester hours resume on Tuesday, September 4 at 8:00 a.m.

Saturday: Closed

Sunday: Closed

Monday: Closed

Harbert Writing Center Hours for Fall 2012

Photo provided by Harbert Writing Center

The Harbert Writing Center (HWC) has announced their hours for the Fall 2012 term. The Center is open from 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 9:00 - 3:00 p.m. on Friday. No appointment is necessary. Dr. Glenda Conway, Professor of English and Director of the HWC, provides this explanation of the Center's services:

The Harbert Writing Center provides free assistance to writers at all stages of the writing process. HWC's peer consultants are trained to direct and coach student writers in understanding course assignments, making decisions about focus and content, composing initial drafts, and determining the best strategies for revising and polishing.

The HWC is located in room 311 of Comer Hall. The Center can be reached at (205) 665-6438.

Schedule Time in the Digital Media Lab

Welcome back to Montevallo, everyone!  The first few days of a new semester are always exciting.  One of the things I always did as a student was scan the syllabus once it got handed to me in class and figure out what I would have to do to succeed that semester.  Some might call this "planning ahead." Others might call it "missing the moment at hand."

Either way, you may find yourself doing something like that this week.  If you do notice your professor is requiring you to create a video, podcast, oral history, blog post, infographic, digital story, or some other strange kind of assignment that isn't a conventional class presentation, you may be interested in the Digital Media Lab at the Carmichael Library.

The Digital Media Lab offers a range of technology, equipment, and assistance on your multi-media and digital assignments.  We have microphones, mixing boards, video editing software, digital voice recorders, and more.  Mike Price is happy to help you out at any time, and this semester, we've released a completely automated scheduling system.  You can log on to our new website and book a time in the Digital Media Lab whenever you'd like.  Just click here to see when the lab is available.

When you book a time, click on the green time slots, and then you'll fill out a short form with some questions about your assignment.  Someone will write you back to confirm your appointment.  If you need time that's longer than an hour, click on multiple slots at the same time.  We look forward to seeing you this semester.

Heaviest Vogue ever and a little about Bill Cunningham

Vogue's September 2012 Special Anniversary Issue is the heaviest Vogue ever.  Weighing in at a whopping 5 lbs. and 916 pages, it's the biggest issue ever for Vogue.  The Library has subscribed to Vogue since 1950.  You can take a look through the bound print issues now shelved on the 2nd floor of the Library.   

Vogue was described by book critic Caroline Weber in The New Times in December 2006 as "the world's most influential fashion magazine.  Vogue features some of the world's best fashion photographers.  Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton, Peter Linbergh, and Annie Leibovitz have all contributed to Vogue. 

But one of the most endearing fashion photographers is New Yorker Bill Cunningham. "We all get dressed for Bill", says Vogue editor Anna Wintour.  For over 50 years, the Schwinn-riding New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham has been chronicling fashion on the streets of New York.

Library Hours for Fall 2012

From Carmichael Library director, Kathy Lowe:

Colleagues and Students,

The Carmichael Library faculty and staff have worked hard this summer to complete renovations on the Library’s ground floor Learning Commons. The new ground floor entrance is now open to all members of the campus community and the public. When the library is open after 9:00 p.m. Access to the ground floor is available to UM students, faculty, and staff with a valid UM ID. You will need to swipe your UM ID after 9:00 p.m. to enter the ground floor entrance. After 9:00 p.m. individuals without a valid UM ID should enter through the Main floor entrance of the library.

Just a reminder that the Learning Enrichment Center, EBSCO classroom, a computer lab, and the University Archives are located on the Learning Commons ground floor of the Library.

Regular University Library Hours for Fall 2012

Sunday 2:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m.
Monday 8:00 a.m. - 1:00 a.m.
Tuesday 8:00 a.m. - 1:00 a.m.
Wednesday 8:00 a.m. - 1:00 a.m.
Thursday 8:00 a.m. - 11:00 p.m.
Friday 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Saturday 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Exceptions to the schedule will be posted.

Sunday August 26, the Library will open at 3:00 p.m. and close at 11:00 p.m.

Photo credit: Kaja Kozłowska, Creative Commons license

A Ghostly Welcome to Carmichael Library

Ever since I headed off to the first day of kindergarten in an awesome watermelon-print jumpsuit, I have loved the beginning of a new school year. For me, the start of this year is a milestone that rivals that melon-clad day, because I am as new to the University of Montevallo as the freshmen who will arrive on Thursday.

In my transition to Montevallo I’ve managed to avoid some of the perils that will inevitably befall these new students: the mad dash to claim the “good” side of the dorm room, the indigestion from too much dining hall pizza, the shock of sitting in a college classroom for the first time.  But as I’ve started my new position as a Reference and Instruction Librarian at Carmichael Library, many of my experiences reflect those that await UM’s incoming freshmen: exploring a beautiful new campus, meeting new friends and colleagues, and having discussions with them that inspire “new little firecrackers of ideas going off every day” (to quote The Bell Jar, a book I read and loved while sitting at my desk on the “good” side of my freshman dorm room).

Since I feel such a connection to the UM freshmen who will be launched into college life through the backseats of minivans later this week, I’m especially excited about the Library Mystery that we’ve been planning as part of Take Flight Weekend.  Students will explore library spaces and resources, led by some of UM’s longest residents: the King family members who are buried in the graveyard on campus.

 

The ghosts of the King family have all kinds of stories to tell the new students: tales of settling the area in 1817, building the King House on the land that would become UM, and having near-death experiences on Civil War battlefields.  One ghost, Lylleton King, even comes to grips with his accidental death at the hands of his scatterbrained brother, Nathanial King:

 

To wish the new freshmen luck in college, these friendly ghosts will lead students to Edmund King’s gold, which is rumored to be buried somewhere on campus.  The ghosts are surprisingly tech-savvy: all the clues will be delivered using QR codes that students will scan with the library’s new ipads.

Working with my new friends and colleagues on the Library Mystery has helped me appreciate some of Montevallo’s history, and we hope that this will be true for the students who participate as well.  I look forward to working with our new freshmen, returning students, faculty and staff as I start fresh at Montevallo.

The Library Mystery will take place on Thursday (8/23) at 10 pm.  Students can register here.

Learning Commons ground floor entrance now open

The Library's Learning Commons ground floor entrance is now open.  Starting this week, you will not need your ID card to enter the ground floor entrance.  During regular semester hours, the ground floor entrance will be open until 9:00 p.m. After 9:00 p.m. only students, faculty and staff with valid UM IDs can enter the ground floor entrance.

EBSCO databases are up and running

All EBSCO databases should be working both on campus and off campus. If you are still experiencing technical difficulties with connecting, please call the library at 665-6100.

EBSCO database access is down

We are working to resolve problems with connections to all EBSCO databases.  Both on campus and off campus connections are down.  All other databases are working.  Consider using Academic One File and the new World Cat Local system to locate articles and books.

We will continue to monitor the situation and let you know as soon as EBSCO resolves the problem.

Library Interim Hours

The library will be open during the Interim on Monday - Friday from 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
The library will not be open on weekends.  During the Interim, the ground floor entrance is open to users with a valid UM ID.   Access to the ground floor entrance without a UM ID will begin the week of New Faculty Orientation and Take Flight Week.    

Summer II hours for the library

Sunday           2:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Monday         8:00 am -  9:00 pm

Tuesday         8:00 am -  9:00 pm

Wednesday   8:00 am -  9:00 pm

Thursday        8:00 am -  9:00 pm

Friday             8:00 am -  5:00 pm

Saturday        Closed

Map found at the University of Munich Library

Photo by University of Munich Library

Only five copies of a map by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller were thought to have survived; the map in which the name "America" was first used. Waldseemüller named the continent on his map America (now known as South America) in honor of Amerigo Vespucci. He believed Vespucci discovered the continent. This map was distinctive in the way the globe is depicted in 12 segements that taper off at each end. The map was found recently at the University of Munich library, sandwiched between two 16th century geometry books. According to curator Sven Kuttner, "the paper's watermark indicates that it may have been printed after the first edition of 1507." For the 4th of July, the university has made a digitized version available here.

Carmichael Acquires Early English Books Online

Carmichael Library is excited to announce the availability of a new database collection. Early English Books Online (EEBO) provides access to 125,000 works from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700. The collection covers many subject areas, including English literature, history, philosophy, linguistics, theology, music, fine arts, education, mathematics, and science. EEBO is available on campus and remotely to all current UM students, staff, and faculty. For more information on the extensive coverage in this database, check the publisher's website.

Ruling in Copyright Georgia State copyright case comes in

Georgia State University's e-reserves policy was under attack by three academic publishers Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Sage Publications for copyright violations.  

Jennifer Howard writes in the Chronicle May 13, 2012 that the Long-Awaited Ruling in Copyright Case Mostly Favors Georgia State .  

Library Journal INFOdocket has a post with analysis and the full text of the ruling.

JA Brown Jr., and Eleanor L. Brown Collaborative Learning Room Dedication and Ribbon Cutting

The dedication and ribbon cutting for the JA Brown Jr., and Eleanor L. Brown Collaborative Learning Room will be today, Friday, May 4 at 11:30 a.m. in the Carmichael Library. All members of the campus and the community are invited to attend.

UM Faculty and Choice Reviews Online

UM Faculty,

Have you missed those (paper-cut inducing) Choice Review cards appearing in your mailbox every month? Please visit Choice Reviews Online! Once there, you can look at the most current reviews, search for specific subjects, create a profile to receive emails about new resources, and email lists to your colleagues and the library! For more information about how to use Choice Online, go HERE!

Best,
Amanda Melcher
Collection Management Librarian
melcheras@montevallo.edu

A Flowering of Multi-Modal Learning

At Montevallo, it's the last week of classes, otherwise known as the Week of Reckoning, or a frenzied time when students turn in final projects and are held to account by end-of-semester exams.  Is this a good time for learning?  As David Jaffee of the Chronicle of Higher Education says, traditional academic exercises like final exams often do not encourage or capture meaningful knowledge development.  When we stress familiar models like exams, Jaffee writes, we inadvertently suggest that "the process of intellectual inquiry, academic exploration, and acquiring knowledge is purely an instrumentalist activity--designed to assure success on the next assessment."  In reality, these exercises facilitate temporary acquisition of knowledge.

At the Carmichael Library, the Digital Media Lab is doing its part to foster new kinds of learning that correspond to the new literacies required of learners in the digital age.  Students from English composition, social work, communication and science disorders, sociology, and other disciplines are engaged in collaborative video and audio projects of many kinds.  Each of these project require students to represent arguments and evidence in multiple media formats, something they will increasingly be asked to do as professionals and citizens.

Students in Laurel Hitchcocks' SWK/SOC 373 Social Policy students have been engaged in a semester-long project of editing and producing a video that informs potential clients on the impact of important social policies in the United States.  You can visit the University of Montevallo Social Work program YouTube channel to see all of the videos, but we wanted to share some of the highlights here.

Laura Tracy, Becky Stoltz, Mary Ashley Jayne and Staci Sample came up with this video, which highlights the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act.



Each of the videos educate an audience on why social policies matter.  They are the culmination of many conversations, readings, and questions, and they distill knowledge about American society into a meaningful and compelling form.

In English 104 with Lee Rozelle, students were asked to create a video that reviews or critiques a local establishment, recent film, or general cultural artifact.  One of my favorite videos is this review of Joe's Italian in Alabaster, AL.

 

The students logged their production efforts on a blog, which they titled Italy in Alabaster.  At its best moments, the video critiques not only the quality of Joe's food, but also the degree to which it tries to fabricate an "authentic" Italian cultural experience in rural Alabama.

These students should be commended for the work they have done.  They've synthesized personal experience, cultural analysis, and public advocacy of some kind.  Furthermore, they've taken advantage of the space, resources, and people at the Carmichael Library's Digital Media Lab.  We're always here as a resource for anyone who is working with audio, visual, or digital projects of any kind.

Extended Hours for Spring 2012

Photo Credit: Jim Roberts/Flickr

Carmichael Library will again offer extended hours for our students on the week before finals and during final exam week. The extended hours will begin this coming Monday, April 23.


Week Before Finals

Sunday, April 22
2:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.

Monday, April 23 – Thursday, April 26
8:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m.

Friday, April 27
8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Saturday, April 28
10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.


Finals Week

Sunday, April 29
2:00 p.m. – 2:00 a.m.

Monday, April 30 – Tuesday, May 2
8:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m.

Wednesday, May 2
8:00 a.m. – 1:00 a.m.

Thursday, May 3
8:00 a.m. – 11:00 p.m.

Friday, May 4
8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Saturday, May 5 – Sunday, May 6
Closed

Stop by, stay late, and make use of all that we have to offer at the library. Good luck, students!

ILLiad Resource Sharing

Carmichael Library Interlibrary Loan Joins Free Resources Sharing Groups!

The Interlibrary Loan (ILL) department is proud to announce that we are now a part of two distinctive free resource sharing groups: Libraries Very Interested in Sharing (LVIS—pronounced like that hip-shaking, peanut butter & banana eating, heartbreaker Elvis) and LYRA. These groups are committed to the free exchange of information and materials.

What’s the big deal, Jill?

Hey, thanks for asking! Since no library can supply everything, it’s important that we make use of ILL to get the books and articles you need from other libraries. Like everything else, these things cost money and Carmichael is always trying to keep costs down. BTW, some libraries actually charge their faculty and students to use ILL, and some institutions charge other libraries to use their materials. Carmichael doesn’t charge for ILL services and never plans to. Those costs can add up and, well, be down-right annoying, but now we have over 2,000 libraries, worldwide, that we can borrow from—FOR FREE, y’all!!

In other ILL news: There’s a survey out to see what you think about ILLiad. If you haven’t taken it, please do: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/X56VLNL

As always, you can contact Jill Deaver for help with ILL and research.