It's been awhile...

but we're back.

With some interesting news about the library's online catalog:

1. You know in google, when you misspell something, and it asks you "did you mean:..."? Our catalog now does that. It's not quite as sophisticated as google, but it's still pretty helpful. For example, if you accidentally searched for keywords "projict fundamentals", it would ask you "did you mean: project fundamentals?" Pretty neat, eh?

2. Another cool thing about our online catalog: patrons can now rate items. Writing reviews on items is still another release away, but giving an item 1 to 5 stars is now an option. What's really cool about this is that CMC & Marmot patrons are controlling information in their own online catalog. You can see the number of stars an item has averaged on the left side of the results page.

More to come regarding library/faculty liaison relationships early next week!

Alpine Campus Library Responds to Library Survey Suggestions

The Alpine Campus Library conducted a survey during the last two weeks of the Spring '06 semester and published the survey results at the beginning of the Fall '06 semester. We received great suggestions from our patrons who responded to the survey and have implemented a number of these suggestions in the library. Some of these changes include:

Suggestion: We really need a book drop right outside the door to the library! Or better, one outside.
This summer we purchased a new book drop that our terrific physical plant staff installed outside the second floor entrance to Bristol Hall. Our students are using it.
Suggestion: Wireless Internet!!!!
Thanks to the efforts of our IT personnel, there is Wireless Internet access in the library.
Suggestion: More student art on the walls.
We have discussed displaying student art in the library with our art professors and are pleased to announce our first display of student art, the Wire Shoe Project completed by the 3-D Design class. We're looking forward to displaying more student art later this semester.
Suggestion: Make Jazz CDs more accessible.
We moved the Jazz and Classical CD shelf right next to the popular CD & DVD shelves and placed signs identifying these collections.
Suggestion: More CDs and DVDs. More, More More!!! (This was a popular suggestion).
Since July 1, 2006, we have added 89 new DVDs and 64 new CDs to our collection of popular music and movies.
Comment: I like that you include student opinion on the DVDs. Thank you!
During the Fall '06 semester our "Feed the Pig" contest resulted in 69 student purchase suggestions. Library director David Willis compiled these suggestions in our most recent media order of 60 items. See previous blog entry New Media on the Way.
Suggestion: Everything is great except for many of the books. The last 3 research papers I did, I could not find current books.
This summer we ran an aging report on the collection. This report broke our collection down by Library of Congress call number range and date of publication. Our director David Willis used this report to identify the areas of the collection that should be updated. Library staff were assigned subject areas that needed more current materials and told to make selections for these areas. This collaborative collection development project resulted in the purchase of over 200 new books.

We're very pleased with the responses we received on this survey, and really appreciate our library patrons. Please feel free to add your suggestions for the library in the comment section of this or any blog on the CMC Alpine Library blog site.

New Media on the Way

Hello library users,

We just ordered some fantastic new CDs and DVDs for our circulating collection yesterday. They should arrive by the end of this week or early next, and we should have most of them processed by the end of next week. Email or call us if you see a title you simply gotta have first, and we'll be happy to set it aside for you once we've processed it. Bear in mind that a few of these titles have not been released yet. Here's the list:

DVDs

ATL
The Adventures of Indiana Jones (Trilogy Collection)
America Psycho (Uncut Version)
The Big White
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation...
Dead Man
Finding Nemo (Collector's)
First Descent
The Great Escape (Special)
An Inconvenient Truth
Jesus Camp
Kinky Boots
Led Zeppelin
Little Miss Sunshine
The Outlaw Josey Wales
The Prestige
A River Runs Through It
Rockers (Anniversary)
Run Ronnie Run
Running Scared
Secret
Shaolin Ulysses: Kungfu Monks in America
Star Wars Trilogy
Sublime Tribute: Look at All the Love We Found Live
Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense
Thank You for Smoking
This Is Spinal Tap (Special)
V for Vendetta (Widescreen)
Weekend at Bernie's
White Squall

CDs

Animal Years/Josh Ritter
Astral Weeks/Van Morrison
Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain/Sparklehorse
Everything All the Time/Band of Horses
Everything Under the Sun/Sublime
Eyes Open/Snow Patrol
Fly Between Falls/Animal Liberation Orchestra
Food & Liquor/Lupe Fiasco
Fort Recovery/Centro-Matic
Greatest Hits/2pac
Gypsum Strings/Oakley Hall
Harpooner/Paul Brill
Heavyweight Dub-Killer Dub/Inner Circle
Hell Hath No Fury/Clipse
I Am Not Afraid of You & I Will Beat Your Ass/Yo La Tengo
It's Never Been Like That/Phoenix
Live from Mars/Ben Harper
More Fire/Capleton
Panic in Babylon/Lee "Scratch" Perry
Pink/Boris
Reggae Anthology: Anything Test Dead/Ninja Man
Reign of Fire/Capleton
Return to Cookie Mountain/TV on the Radio
Roots & Crowns/Califone
Set Yourself on Fire/Stars
Six Demon Bag/Man Man
Waterloo to Anywhere/Dirty Pretty Things
Wee Hours Revue/Roman Candle
Words Are Dead/Horse Feathers
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot/Wilco

Knitting Resources in the Library

The Alpine Campus knitting group will begin meeting again starting Monday, January 29th from noon ‘til 2:00 in the Schaffrick Lounge on the second floor of Willett Hall. The informal group is open to needle working students, faculty, staff and community members, so bring your projects and join in the fun!

The Alpine Campus Bookstore, conveniently located right next to the Schaffrick Lounge, is offering a 20% discount on all knitting materials, including scarf kits and ribbon yarn and mohair yarn!

Some knitting books available for checkout at the Alpine Campus Library include:

The knitter's handy book of patterns : basic designs in multiple sizes and gauges / Ann Budd.

Hip knit hats : 40 fabulous designs / Cathy Carron.

Country knits : with over 30 glorious designs / Debbie Bliss and Fiona McTague.

The complete book of traditional knitting / Rae Compton.

The complete book of traditional Fair Isle knitting / Shiela McGregor.

Knitting with dog hair / Kendall Crolius and Ann Montgomery. (Before you get all excited about this one, know that knitting with dog hair requires that you card and spin dog hair into yarn before you can knit with it).

Knitters who are also fans of Harry Potter (and really, who isn’t?) will appreciate this Internet blog entry, brought to our attention by former CMC administrative aide, Karen Wallace:

http://alison.knitsmiths.us/pattern_weasley.html

The knitting pattern is for the sweater Mrs. Weasley knits every Christmas for each of her many children, including surrogate child Harry Potter. Molly Weasley is a worthy role model for any hyperactive knitter, and though her children have been known to pass her Christmas sweaters on to the house elves at Hogwarts, she deserves our respect and admiration.

If you have any questions about the knitting group or anything Harry Potter related, call or email Kristin in the library: 970-870-4449 or kweber@coloradomtn.edu

See you on Mondays at noon and BYON (Bring your own needles).

something cool about item record pages

so you use our online catalog regularly. it helps you find books, dvd's, cd's, and everything else in the library.

but once you get to the item record page in our online catalog (like this one), did you know that you can link to book reviews off of that page? we subscribe to a service called content cafe, and if you click the more about this item button in the upper right hand corner of the screen, it will take you to a corresponding page that has a summary, reviews, contents, cover image, and book details.

pretty cool, don't you think?

faculty: while you may be good and tired of seeing wikipedia as a resource in your student's papers, wikipedia is not the only wiki out there, nor is it the only useful application of the wiki environment. wikis - collaborative web pages where members of that community can add and change information instantly via web-based interfaces - are growing in popularity; and they're being used effectively in educational settings.

here's a good introductory article from the seattle times.

here's a quick little rundown on wikis and educational usage.

blackboard isn't the only game in town anymore, folks. consider wikis and blogs as alternative online environments for your classes. and if you need any help setting these free resources up, that's what we're here for.

if you're interested in starting a wiki, try pbwiki. and if you're interested in starting a blog, try blogger.

And so the Spring semester begins...

Welcome to a new semester, ladies and gentlemen! As always, the library is eager to help faculty any number of ways:

• If it's library instruction you need for your classes, we have it! We can show your students how to use our OPAC (online public access catalog), our subscription databases, and many other resources on our website.
• If it's more general research skills you're after, we can talk with students about evaluating information, using internet search engines more effectively, proper citation techniques for papers, and anything else you can think of. Call 870.4445, email, or drop by to set up a session.
• Would you like to provide your students with a subject bibliography for a class or assignment? We can do the legwork for you and compile a list of print, database, and online resources available in the library and/or through our website.
• Interested in having a library display based on subject material in your class? Let us know. We currently have one on HIV up for Kathy Wolf.
  

If you haven't seen the library's myspace page, check it out. It's just starting so we don't have too many friends yet, but we're trying to reach out to CMC students through this new medium.

also, if you've never heard of flickr, check it out also. it's an enormous, free, member-supported database of images, some professional and some not so much. even more fun than flickr? retrievr - the "search by sketch" interface that allows you to use flickr in a really cool way.

Copyright Guidelines

Hi all!

For the past few semesters we have given a brief orientation to new adjunct faculty on fair use of copyrighted materials in education. The accompanying handout is reproduced below, and hopefully it will be useful for you when thinking about the materials you use, and how you use them.

Fair Use of Copyrighted Materials for Educational Purposes

Fair use explicitly allows use of copyrighted materials for educational purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Rather than listing exact limits of fair use, copyright law provides four standards for determination of the fair use exemption:

1. Purpose of use: Copying and using selected parts of copyrighted works for specific educational purposes qualifies as fair use, especially if the copies are made spontaneously, are used temporarily, and are not part of an anthology.

2. Nature of the work: Factual works, published works and scientific articles that are factual in nature are more likely to be considered available for fair use than are creative, imaginative, artistic, or unpublished works. Additionally certain "consumable" works, e.g. workbooks and standardized tests are not likely to be considered available for fair use.

3. Proportion/extent of the material used: Duplicating excerpts that are short in relation to the entire copyrighted work or segments that do not reflect the "essence" of the work is usually considered fair use.

4. The effect on marketability: If there will be no reduction in sales because of copying or distribution, the fair use exemption is likely to apply. This is the most important of the four tests for fair use.

This is all certainly a little vague. Consider the following statements in determining whether an educational use is “fair use.” The more statements that are true for your situation, the better case you have for a fair use claim.

· The use of copyright material must be presented by instructors or pupils enrolled in the specific course.

· A media performance (audio or visual) must occur in class, must be directly related to the curriculum being taught, and cannot be presented as a reward.

· Only individuals enrolled in the course can be present for a performance.

· Copyright material used must be a legally acquired copy of the work (this means items must have either been paid for by the instructor, the department, the library, or the college).

· Access to copyright materials will be terminated at the end of the class term.

· Copyright materials will only be used once, even if the lesson stays the same through multiple terms; different copyright materials will be utilized in teaching the same lesson over multiple terms.