Celebrate LGBTQ History Month

October is Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Questioning History Month.  Explore the library’s resources featured below!

Stripes in a variety of colors are in the background. Title says, "A Positive View of LGBTQ"
HQ 73 .R54 2012

Title says "A Queer History of the United States." Several historical photographs line the top and bottom.

HQ 76.3 .U5 B696 2011

Title says "Queer (In)Justice" against a gray background.

KF 4754.5 .M64 2011

Other selected titles:

Becoming Visible : an illustrated history of lesbian and gay life in twentieth-century America      HQ 75.16 .U6 M37 1998

Gay Rights Activists    HQ 76.8 .U5 B86 2005

Hear Us Out! : lesbian and gay stories of struggle, progress and hope, 1950 to the present        HQ 76.8 .U5 G357 2007

Making History : the struggle for gay and lesbian equal rights, 1945-1990 : an oral history    HQ76.8 .U5 M36 1993

The Right to Be Out : sexual orientation and gender identity in America’s public schools      LC 212.92 .B52 2010

The Right to Be Parents : LGBT families and the transformation of parenthood      KF 540 .B35 2012

Stonewall Uprising (American Experience) [DVD]       HQ 76.8 .U6 S76 2011

Word is Out [DVD]    HQ 76.3 .U5 W673 2010

Search the online catalog for additional materials.

New Fiction! Hooray!

Did you know that the library has a nice fiction collection?

We purchase new novels, graphic novels, books of poetry, and short story collections a few times per year using funds from our Durham Tech Foundation Campus Fund Drive account.  We think that pleasure reading is important and fun!  We also appreciate hearing your requests.  If you have a book to recommend to the library for our collection, please let us know in the comments below or send us an email (library@durhamtech.edu).

Check out our current display downstairs for the month of September for our new arrivals.

Photograph of a book display featuring fiction books

You can also search for titles in the online catalog if you have a favorite author or series that you enjoy reading.

Here are some of the new titles:

Among Others by Jo Walton

Astray by Emma Donoghue

Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories by Sherman Alexie

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Fire in the Streets by Kekla Magoon

Have You Seen Marie? by Sandra Cisneros

The Humanity Project by Jean Thompson

Kings and Queens of Roam by Daniel Wallace

Mary Coin by Marisa Silver

The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen

The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis

The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories Volumes 1 & 2 by Ursula Le Guin

Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell

The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories by Ann VanderMeer

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

Curl up with a new book and enjoy!

New Library PC Reservation System!

Image has the PC Reservation logo and the image of a computer monitor.

At Durham Tech, our students and their academic work are our highest priority.   We are excited to introduce you to our new PC Reservation system in the Main Campus library, which  is designed to ensure that currently enrolled students will be able to access the upstairs library computers in a more timely manner.

Here are answers to some of the questions you may have about our new system:

What if I am a…

  • Current Durham Tech curriculum student, staff, or faculty member? 

To access our library computers, just log in with your Web Advisor username (last name, first initial, last four digits of your Durham Tech ID number).  You may log in up to 5 different times for a computer session.  You are allowed180 minutes for each session at all Web Advisor computers except the Express Computer, which limits all sessions to 15 minutes each.

  • Current Durham Tech student without a Web Advisor account?

You will need a Guest Pass from the desk to log in, but you may have multiple (up to 5) sessions daily.   We will need to see your Durham Tech student ID and we will issue you a library card.  Then when you come in, just show us your library card and we will ask you to sign in and then we will issue you your guest pass.

  • Guest (includes public patrons and students not currently enrolled)?

            Guests may use one of four designated GUEST computers for one session of up to one hour per day, no extensions.   Guests will need a Durham Tech library card in order to receive a guest pass.  Each time you come in, we will ask for your library card and have you sign in, then we will issue your guest pass to use a computer.

  • How can I get a public patron library card for a Guest Pass?

Patrons must be at least 16 to be issued library cards and use computers. To be issued a public patron library card, guests who are 18 years of age or older should present proof of identification and North Carolina residence at the circulation desk.    High school students (not including Durham Tech Middle College students, who have a Web Advisor username) from Orange and Durham Counties need a completed Parental Authorization form as well as identification in order to be issued a library card.

  • Can I log in on more than one computer?

No.  You must use your own Web Advisor username and you are limited to one computer at the time.

  • Can I make reservations in advance?

Yes!  Current Durham Tech students, staff, or faculty may set up their own reservations daily.

  • Can my child use a computer while I do my work?

No.  Children under 16 may not use library computers even under parental supervision.

           Important Information Regarding Children in the Library:  

Children are not allowed to be left alone in the library– we want children to be safe!  If space is available, children may sit beside parents working on computers upstairs. Children are not allowed in the downstairs computer lab, which is for the use of currently enrolled students only.

   Please note that all computers will time out and log off your session after 15 minutes of inactivity, so be sure to save your work and monitor any time away.

The PC reservation system is also installed in the computer lab downstairs, and students will need to log in using their Web Advisor username there as well.  Remember that the lab is only for currently enrolled students;  you’ll need to show your Durham Tech student ID with a current sticker and sign in.

This system is new to us as well as to you, so we appreciate your patience as we work out the kinks.  Please ask us if you need help or if you have questions!

Read the book and watch the movie

Books often translate well to film.  Here are some of the titles that the library has as both book and DVD.

Red collage with the picture of a film reel and the phrases "From Books to Film," "Read the book," and "Watch the movie."

Visit our display on the lower level for these titles.

  • Anna Karenina
  • Diary of Anne Frank
  • Eclipse
  • Emma
  • For Colored Girls
  • Freakonomics
  • Freedom Writers
  • The Hours
  • A Lesson Before Dying
  • Life of Pi
  • Lord of the Rings
  • Moneyball
  • The Namesake
  • No Country for Old Men
  • A Raisin in the Sun
  • The Road
  • Sense & Sensibility
  • Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
  • Water for Elephants

Recently adapted books-to-film coming soon: Cloud Atlas and Great Gatsby

Celebrating the Bull City

Evening photo overlooking the Durham downtown area.

photo from Design Sponge

Explore Durham’s history and culture with these resources:

Photo shows the front entrance to the Durham Bulls Athletic Park

photo from MILB.com

27 Views of Durham : the Bull City in prose & poetry

Durham County : a history of Durham County, North Carolina

Durham Technical Community College : celebrating 50 years, 1961-2011

A Palette, Not a Portrait : stories from the life of Nathan Garrett

Upbuilding Black Durham : gender, class, and Black community development in the Jim Crow South

Durham Tales : the Morris Street maple, the plastic cow, the Durham Day that was & more

Durham, a Self-Portrait [DVD]

Our Separate Ways : women and the Black Freedom Movement in Durham, North Carolina

Favored by Fortune : George W. Watts & the Hills of Durham

Durham’s Hayti

Mary : an autobiography

Use the online catalog to find call numbers and more information about these materials.

For more information:

Read a list of 300 things that make Durham Great from the Durham Convention & Visitor’s Bureau.

Visit Open Durham a highly interlinked archive/inventory of information about people, places, and history in Durham, NC with excellent photos.

Photo of a historical sign with information about Black Wall Street

photo from flickr

Check out the Museum of Durham History and visit the Durham History Hub in downtown Durham.

Learn about Durham’s “Black Wall Street” from LEARN NC, a program of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Education

New DVD guides make finding movies easy

We now have two great online guides for finding movies in the library’s collection.  One guide is for browsing titles by movie genre such as Action, History, Sports, etc… and the other is an alphabetical listing of films in our collection.

We hope you’ll discover lots of films that you want to watch. Thanks to our library staff member, Lauren Havens, for all of her hard work creating these new resources.

You can also access these guides under the LibGuides link on the library website.

Screenshot of a LibGuide, with tabs indicating DVD genres.

New movies available at the library now

Summer is a great time for movie watching!  You may borrow two movies at a time for a week.

A woman in a red period dress is shown in front of a winter background.DVD cover shows half of Bradley Cooper's face on the left and half of Jennifer Lawrence's face on the right. The title, "Silver Linings Playbook" is in the middle between their faces.

New Feature Films:

Anna Karenina

Argo

Django UnchainedShows soldiers outside a compound attempting to get in.A young girl's face and windswept hair are on the bottom of the cover. Four of the main characters, two males and two females, appear on the top.

Les Miserables

Life of Pi

Lincoln

The Master

Perks of Being a WallflowerProfile view of Lincoln against a white background.

A tiger face hovers over a scene with a tiger in a boat and a boy standing on a bit of shore beside it.

Silver Linings Playbook

Zero Dark Thirty

Documentaries:

The Abolitionists

Brushes with Life: Art, artists, and mental illness

Bully

Cuban Missile Crisis: Three men go to war

Dropout NationA man with a guitar on his back walks down the middle of an urban street.Shows the back of a white male embracing a black female.

Forensics on Trial

From the Other Side

How to Survive a Plague

Hot Coffee: Is justice being served?

The Loving story

Makers: Women who make America

Headshots of a diverse group of women.Overlooks urban area in Myanmar.

Poor Kids: An intimate portrait of America’s economic crisis

Searching for Sugar Man

They Call It Myanmar: Lifting the curtain

Weight of the Nation

Search the online catalog for call numbers and more information about the films.

At the top, a coffee cup is upside down, and $100 dollar bills are falling out.Landscape photo of a fence with a side posted nearby, and below that, a photo of a young person sitting inside.

Get growing with great gardening resources

Check out the library’s display of gardening resources downstairs on the lower level for ideas and inspiration:

Green text says, "Gardening Resources." Images below of a tomato, peppers, and carrots. Brown text below that says, "Get Growing!" A gardening spade is at the very bottom.

  •  American grown : the story of the White House kitchen garden and gardens across America  
  • The vegetable gardener’s container bible : how to grow a bounty of food in pots, tubs, and other containers
  • The ultimate guide to growing your own food : save money, live better, and enjoy life with food from your own garden
  • From seed to skillet : a guide to growing, tending, harvesting, and cooking up fresh, healthful food to share with people you love
  • Reclaiming our food : how the grassroots food movement is changing the way we eat
  • Grow great grub : organic food from small spaces
  • Basic gardening skills
  • The new American homestead : sustainable, self-sufficient living in the country or in the city
  • Organic manifesto : how organic farming can heal our planet, feed the world, and keep us safe
  • Growing it here, growing it now [videorecording]
  • The garden [videorecording]

Search the online catalog for more titles. Recommended gardening blogs and websites: