Author Archives: Durham Tech Library

2014 Nobel Peace Prize Winners

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The Nobel Peace Prize for 2014 was awarded to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai for their advocacy for children’s rights.

Photographs of Kailash Satyarthi on the left and of Malala Yousafzai on the right.

Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai were picked as winners for their struggle against the oppression of children and their right to education. Photograph: Reuters (Source Guardian.com)

Here is background information about Mr. Satyarthi and Miss Yousafzai from the New York Times, “In India, Mr. Satyarthi, a former engineer, has long been associated with the struggle to free bonded laborers, some born into their condition and others lured into servitude. For decades, he has sought to rid India of child slavery and has liberated more than 75,000 bonded and child laborers in the country.  Mr. Satyarthi began working for children’s rights in 1980 as the general secretary of the Bonded Labor Liberation Front, an organization dedicated to freeing bonded laborers forced to work to pay off debts, real or imagined. He also founded the Bachpan Bachao Andolan, or Save the Children Mission, an organization dedicated to ending bonded labor and saving children from trafficking. ” (http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/10/nobel-peace-prize-awarded-to-defenders-of-childrens-rights/)

“Ms. Yousafzai began campaigning for girls’ education at the age of 11, three years before she was shot by the Taliban. She was so young that some observers questioned how well equipped a child of that age could be to put her own safety on the line and commit to a life of activism. The prize she received on Friday validates what she has taken on, but also underscores the disproportionate expectations that trail her: Can she truly influence the culture of her home country of Pakistan, which she cannot even visit because of threats to her safety, and where many revile her as a tool of the West? Ms. Yousafzai may be an Anne Frank-like figure who defied terror, showed extraordinary courage and inspires hope, but how much can one teenager accomplish?” (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/11/world/asia/malala-yousafzai-youngest-nobel-peace-prize-winner-adds-to-her-achievements-and-expectations.html)

 The library has a copy of Malala Yousafzai’s inspiring memoir available for checkout:  LC 2330 .Y69 2013

Photograph of Malala Yousafzai

Book Cover photo: www.hachettebookgroup.com

For further reading, photos, and videos:

Nobel Announcement
Washington Post
The Guardian

NC LIVE Has E-Books!

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You’ve certainly been to the library in the ERC to check out some of our 40,000-plus books, but be sure to check out the e-book offerings from NC LIVE as well!

On the Durham Tech Library home page, click on E-books and Digital Audio Books. From there, follow the link to NC LIVE e-books. In the search box on that page, you can type your search term(s) to get started. You can also click on one of the individual collections, such as

You can also visit NC LIVE’s Home Grown eBook Collection, which “offers a wide range of content, including novels by popular North Carolina authors, poetry, short stories, and non-fiction,” according to the August 2014 press release. This collection is on the BiblioBoard platform and is compatible with Safari and Chrome browsers.

Durham Reads Together Events Scheduled for October

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A bull reads a red book. Text says, "2014 Durham Reads Together March: Book One. John Lewis. Andrew Aydin. Nate Powell.

Congressman and civil rights advocate, John Lewis’ graphic novel March: Book One, has been selected for the 2014 Durham Community Reads program. March: Book One is the first installation of a trilogy, and spans John Lewis’ youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins, building to a stunning climax on the steps of City Hall.

 

Cover of the graphic novel shows a sit-in at the bottom and a lot of people walking at the top.

Students in HIS 132 courses at Durham Tech are reading the book this semester. The library has several copies available of this book for loan and on reserve. Durham Reads Together, held every two years, is sponsored by the Durham County Library, and encourages residents to read and discuss a single book. Admission to all programs is free. View the link below for information about book related events and activities in October.

http://durhamreadstogether.org/events/

Interlibrary Loan Can Benefit You!

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If we don’t have something you need, we can probably get it!

As great a collection as we have, Durham Tech Library doesn’t have ALL the books we’d love to have. With the funding we receive, we try to purchase books most needed to support courses being taught at the college, but we can’t buy everything that we want and that our very diverse users would like. Even if a book isn’t in our immediate collection, though, we might still be able to get access to it, so if you don’t see a book you want, ask us! We can usually get books through interlibrary loan, which is when we borrow a book from another library. To request a book, you can:

  • come to the front desk in the library to let us know what you’d like,
  • send us an email,
  • complete the online request form,
  • Screenshot of the library catalog with a circle around the "ALL" selection to search all community college libraries instead of just Durham Tech Librariesor request the item directly from the online catalog. To do this, search the collections of all of the community colleges in North Carolina by selecting “All” (see image to the right), and when you find the item you want, click “Place Hold” on the left side (see image below).

Screenshot of an item entry in the library catalog with a circle around "Place Hold" on the left side.

It usually takes at least a week for us to get a book from another library, so please don’t wait until the day before something is due to see what resources you might need.

We can also get articles from other libraries if you can’t find them in our online databases. Anytime you need information or materials, please let us know, and we’ll see if we can get those materials for you.

 

Hispanic Heritage Month: In the Library & around Durham Tech

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National Hispanic Heritage Month runs from September 15 to October 15 and celebrates the contributions and cultural history of Hispanic Americans.  The Library of Congress, National Archives, and Smithsonian Institution (among others) have created digital displays to commemorate the occasion, including art, audio, literature, and video.  To explore these resources, go to http://hispanicheritagemonth.gov/

Check out our front window display highlighting some of our library’s resources by Hispanic authors and about Hispanic cultures, and be sure to let a librarian know if you want to take any of the display books home to read– anything in the front windows is available to check out.  Just ask!

Around Durham Tech, there are some exciting events planned to celebrate, including several Latino Student Success Discussions, a Bilingual Poetry Hour, and a Latin American Film Festival (and food trucks!).  Click on the flier to see more details.

Screenshot of events noted on Durham Tech's website

Credo Reference

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Purple Credo logo

Credo Reference is an online database of more than 3 million entries in over 600 reference books. It is helpful when you’re developing a topic for an assignment, because it provides brief topic overviews and links to related entries in Credo Reference resources. You can also follow links from Credo Reference into other resources provided by the Durham Tech Library, including the library catalog and online databases.

Additionally, you can browse reference books by subject area, use the “image search” option to find pictures related to a topic and explore the “mind map” search strategy to brainstorm and discover related terms to your search term.

When you have become comfortable with the basic searches, the “advanced search” feature allows you to be more exact in your search strategies. If you are feeling very confident and a little adventurous, also check out the “power search” tips from the “advanced search” page.

Check it out!

New Resources from NC LIVE!

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If you have been studying at Durham Tech for a couple semesters, you are probably familiar with some of the article databases and other research tools that are available through NC LIVE, such as Academic Search Complete and Newspaper Source Plus. This semester–and continuing through 2017–NC LIVE is subscribing to some new resources you’ll want to use!

ProQuest Central provides access to “thousands of periodical titles and millions of full-text articles.” ProQuest Newsstand replaces Newspaper Source Plus and “offers unparalleled access to the full text of over 1300 newspapers, news websites and blogs from leading publishers throughout the world.”

Other changes include adding Pronunciator, a language learning service; Gale Literature Resource Center for literature research; and streaming videos from Films on Demand! A complete list of the subscription changes is available on the NC LIVE website.

Remember that you can find links to the electronic resources provided by your library from the library’s website. All of the ProQuest databases are already available to everyone affiliated with Durham Tech, so you can start using them if you haven’t already checked them out. Other new databases will become available in early 2015. We also will continue to provide access to the EBSCOhost databases through December, though our subscription expires then and you won’t have access to them after that.

If you need more information about these changes, please contact the Durham Tech Library.

New Books!

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I think that there are few things more wonderful than new books, but I acknowledge that, being a librarian, I’m biased. See a full list of the gems recently added to our collection in this PDF: New Books.

Highlights from the full list include:

Cover of "Ivory, Horn, and Blood" shows a rhino with armed guards nearby and a group of elephants walking.Ivory, Horn, and Blood: Behind the Elephant and Rhinoceros Poaching Crisis by Ronald Orenstein

This alarming book tells a crime story that takes place thousands of miles away, in countries that few of us may visit. But like the trade in illegal drugs, the traffic in elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn has far-reaching implications not only for these endangered animals, but also for the human victims of a world-wide surge in organized crime, corruption and violence.

 

A white creature with tentacles against a black background.The Last Animal: Stories by Abby Geni

This is a series of stories unified around one theme: people who use the interface between the human and the natural world to contend with their modern challenges in love, loss, and family life. These are vibrant, weighty stories that herald the arrival of a young writer of surprising feeling and depth.

 

A landscape with vegetation.Looking Out, Looking In: Anthology of Latino Poetry. William Luis, editor.

This twelfth edition continues its outstanding tradition of combining current information with a fun, reader-friendly voice that links course topics to your everyday life.

 

 

The title fades to gray into the background: "No Place to Hide"No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State by Glenn Greenwald

In May 2013, Glenn Greenwald set out for Hong Kong to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have astonishing evidence of pervasive government spying and insisted on communicating only through heavily encrypted channels. That source turned out to be the 29-year-old NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and his revelations about the agency’s widespread, systemic overreach proved to be some of the most explosive and consequential news in recent history, triggering a fierce debate over national security and information privacy.

Sports! And Reading!

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With all the recent less-than-heartening news about college athletes and academics, it’s nice to see something positive:

Read the article here about University of Georgia’s Malcolm Mitchell and the book club he joined to help him improve his reading.

Our favorite part?

Wait, but what about the touchdowns?

“That came natural,” Mitchell said. “That’s a gift. I had to work to read.”

While we don’t have a book club, we do have lots of great books for you to check out in the library, including The Hunger Games trilogy.  See how fast you can read them.

Meet Our New Library Staff!

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The Durham Tech Library is very pleased to welcome new members to our team as well as announce some additional updates to our staffing.  Our new staff members look forward to working with you so please stop by and introduce yourself!

Courtney Bippley, Library Technician

Headshot of Courtney Bippley

Courtney grew up in the Raleigh/Durham area and has a Master of Science in Library Science from UNC Chapel Hill. An avid coffee drinker, she also enjoys tea with a good book. Courtney loves science fiction/fantasy and is always available for a friendly discussion about either. Hobbies include dancing, reading, writing, and the occasional adventure.

 

Stephen Brooks, Reference Librarian

Stephen has worked in libraries for over 20 years at UNC Chapel Hill, Asheville – Buncombe Technical Community College, UNC Asheville and George Mason University. He has a bachelor’s degree in English from UNC Chapel Hill and a master’s degree in library and information studies from UNC Greensboro. He is an avid boardgamer, decent tennis player, and devoted father and husband. Stephen’s favorite book is Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.

Lauren Havens, Reference Librarian

Before joining Durham Tech’s library in January 2013, Lauren had worked at UNC-Chapel Hill, Durham County Library, and the EPA. She and her husband welcomed a baby girl in February, so Lauren has been enjoying the adventure of parenthood… and of course reading many wonderful children’s books! In her spare time, Lauren enjoys blogging, reading (naturally), playing board games like Galaxy Trucker, and catching up on television series like Gravity Falls and Justified.

Meredith Lewis, Reference Librarian

Headshot of Meredith LewisMeredith Lewis works in both the Orange County and Main Campus libraries. A former English teacher, she recently completed her Masters in Library Science at UNC-Chapel Hill and is excited to continue working at Durham Tech after interning and working part-time through the 2013-2014 school year. Professionally, she’s interested in curriculum design, online learning, and meeting the needs of diverse student populations, especially how it relates to library support. Personally, she’s into arts & crafts, cats, cheesy puns, and reading mostly non-serious books.