Category Archives: Just for Fun

April Crafternoon: Paint & Plant

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In addition to almost being Earth Day, it’s time for April’s Crafternoon!

Paint your own pot (and plant your own flowers) Crafternoon kit, including ceramic pot, bag of planting soil, seed packet, paints and paintbrush. Also shown are four books on plants and gardening: How Plants Work, The Triumph of Seeds, The New American Homestead, and Gardening in the South.

Current students can pick up a spring flower kit that includes a seed packet of flowers, a small bag of potting soil, a ceramic pot, and a set of paints and brush to decorate your pot in one of two places: 1) in the Main Campus Library or 2) at the Food Pantry’s outdoor pickup location (outside of Phillips). Kits are first come, first served. 

Send us pictures of your painted planters to library@durhamtech.edu

Crafternoons are a collaboration between the Student Government Association and the Library. 

Waterfalls and Wildflowers

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 Are you planning a trip to see some waterfalls? Want to find some wildflowers nearby those waterfalls? The library can help!

We have several guidebooks to waterfall hikes in North Carolina and the surrounding areas. You read that right, these guidebooks are to WATERFALL hikes. Not boring hikes where you just look at trees, or mountains, or gorges. Waterfalls are where it’s at.*

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April is Poetry Month!

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April is National Poetry Month!

National Poetry Month, April 2021. Celebrating 25 years. The 2021 poster was designed by twelfth grader Bao Lu from Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn, New York, who was the winner of the 2021 National Poetry Month Poster Contest, and features lines by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. "There is nowhere else I want to be but here. I lean into the rhythm of your heart to see where it will take us." Image is an impressionistic painting of a young man floating (or falling) over the telephone lines of a three or four lane road with houses lining the sides. A red-orange-pink ball hovers below his left foot. A yellow hand on a crossing sign is illuminated. The colors are vibrant on a wash of black, white, gray, and tans that make up the scene.

Last year, we did a blackout poetry Crafternoon, and this year we’d like to ask you:

Who is your favorite poet?

What’s your favorite poem?

Let me (Meredith Lewis) know by 5:00 this Friday, April 16 either via email (lewisma@durhamtech.edu) or Teams chat for a chance to have you favorite poem made into this year’s Durham Tech Library Poetry Month bookmarks.

(I’m going to tell you a secret: If you send me a poem or poet that you’d just think would make a good bookmark, I won’t hold it against you and no one is fact-checking what “favorite” means in this context. A short to mid-length poem with vivid imagery is ideal.)

Click through to see previous Durham Tech Library Poetry Month bookmarks and print your own (which are designed to be colored in if you so desire). 

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Happy National Library Workers Day!

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It’s still National Library Week! 

Today is National Library Workers Day, a day for library staff, users, and administrators to recognize the valuable contributions made by all library workers. 

Here’s your current Durham Tech Library team, including Julie, Brian, Tracey, Courtney, Charles, Rachel, Susan, Stephen, Najib, Lorell, and Meredith. 

Don’t forget to enter our National Library Week “Why I Love My Durham Tech Library” Drawing to win some sweet library prizes! Fill out our form by 5:00 on Wednesday, April 7 letting us know why you love your Durham Tech Library or Durham Tech Library staff.  

What We’re Recommending Online for Women’s History Month

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"Girlhood (It's Complicated)" courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution by artist Krystal Quiles
Girlhood (It’s Complicated) by 
Krystal Quiles

Check out some of our staff recommendations that celebrate woman authors and experiences for Women’s History Month that are also available through Dogwood Digital Library– accessible through our database list or through the Libby app. 

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What We’re Watching: Bridgerton! (and Romance Reading through Dogwood Digital)

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bridgerton, on Netflix December 25, 2020

Title: Bridgerton, Season 1 (available streaming on Netflix)

Genre: Period drama; Romance; Regency Romance

This series was watched by Rachel Smith, Northern Durham Center Librarian. 

Set in 19th-century London, Bridgerton centers on the aristocratic Bridgerton family. The widow Violet, Dowager Viscountess Bridgerton is mother to eight children. As eldest daughter Daphne Bridgerton enters her first courting season with Queen Charlotte’s favor, she meets Simon Bassett, Duke of Hastings and best friend of her eldest brother, Anthony. Despite being encouraged by his mentor, Lady Danbury, the Duke is determined not to ever get married and he plots with Daphne to secure his bachelordom and to secure her a suitable marriage.

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Crafternoon: Tie Dye Kits!

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It’s time for another make-at-home Crafternoon adventure! 

Tie dye | Lisa Padilla | Flickr

The Student Government Association and the Library are giving out tie dye kits to current students, which include three colors (blues, yellows, and reds), gloves, and some rubber bands. You’ll provide your own shirt, bag, pants, scarf, hat, whatever you want to dye (in cotton, polyester, or blended fabric). If you would like one, email us at library@durhamtech.edu and we’ll schedule a time for you to pick it up. You can also drop by the Food Pantry outdoor pickup while they’re open to pick up a kit as well. 

Can’t make it to campus to pick up a kit or want to buy your own? We’re using this kit from Michael’s– you can choose from Rainbow, Shark, Mermaid, and Unicorn if you’re buying your own. Or explore the many other options available on the web. 

Keep reading for a few tips, tricks, and design ideas from around the web. 

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What We’re Reading: Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye and some Jane Eyre-Inspired Reads

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Reader, I confess: I’ve never read Jane Eyre. I had a profoundly bad experience with another Brontë sister in high school that has biased me against the other Brontës. Fair? Nope, but sometimes reading isn’t fair when there are lots of other choices out there. 

However, I did recently read Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye about a orphan-turned-governess (with some life experience in between) who keeps coming across the opportunity to murder folks. She picks up a copy of Jane Eyre and is compelled to confess her life story and misdeeds. She’s not arbitrarily murdery, but–shucks–it just keeps happening. 

So let’s do this WWR thing–

jane steele by lyndsay faye

Title: Jane Steele

Author: Lyndsay Faye

Genre: Historical Fiction (takes place in Victorian England)

Available at the Orange County Campus (PS 3606 .A96 J36 2016)

Read Great Things 2021 Categories: A book that takes place outside the continental United States; A book about family; Choose your own category–A book inspired by another book; A book recommended by Durham Tech Library staff (our favorite category)

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Open Educational Resources in North Carolina Higher Education

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March 1-5, 2021 is Open Education Week! 

North Carolina, like many states, is moving towards making Open Educational Resources a valid alternative to traditional publisher-controlled teaching resources. 

Open Education Week 2021, showing an O with a graduation cap

Today’s blog post will acquaint you with some of the things NC has been doing with OER and hopefully get you thinking about how you might use them to customize your course content (and make life simpler for students!). 

Check it out! 

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