It’s Friday, y’all! We made it to the end of another week doing the social distance disco. This week is National Library Week, too.
National Library Week 2020: Find the Library at your Place (and our New Social Media Accounts)
Category Archives: News
The Census Is Coming! (Well, it’s already here.)
Need Textbook or Study Guide Resources? Let us help.
Have you been using the library’s textbook reserves? Do you need some additional study resources for one of your classes (whether you’re the teacher or the student)?
Check out these [temporarily] free textbook and study resources from various publishers and one from the Internet Archive.
Continue Reading →New Library Staff: The Work-from-Home Edition
Lots of changes happening, including new [unpaid] staff members helping your current library staff as we work from home.
Continue Reading →Spring Library News (You Can Use)
The spring Durham Tech Library newsletter is now available. Features include new staff, OER, Summon tips and tricks, current reading challenges, upcoming Crafternoons, TLC news, and more!
Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff– Please do not bring your bag of snakes to the library. Thank you.
It (probably?) should go without saying that snakes and other pets are not allowed in the Durham Tech Library, but just in case you were wondering, based on a pretty popular news article going around lately, service animals must be approved as per college policy. Snakes are not approved service animals.
If you want to know more about snakes and other animals, check out books in call letter S (for some specific domestic animals) and QL (for animals galore!), including some of the awesome picks below:
Available at the Main Campus Library (QL 85 .H47 2010) 
Available at the Main Campus Library (QL 45.2 .M374 2006) 
Available at the Main Campus Library (QL 666 .O6 G69 1997)
Notable News from the Library
New APA citation manual coming soon! The 7th edition will bring exciting changes such as:
- Single-space after periods!*
- No running headers!
- Accessibility guidelines!
- Bias-free language guidelines!
And much more!
We know you’re as excited as we are.
Noted literary critic Harold Bloom has died. The Durham Tech Libraries have over 350 titles in which he was a contributor, author, or editor.
According to his NPR obituary,
Bloom had a photographic memory, and claimed he could recite all of Shakespeare, all of John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and copious swaths of British Romantic poetry. He was widely respected in mid-20th-century literary circles,but over the years, he fell out of fashion, in large part for his outspoken disdain for fellow scholars who he deemed “resentniks” —Deconstructionists, feminists and multiculturalists, whose cultural politics,he felt, minimized the genius of the writers he lionized.
Jenny Lawson, also known as The Bloggess and the author of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened and Furiously Happy [available at the Main Campus Library], who is best known for her humorous takes on struggling with mental illnesses and love of weird taxidermy, is opening a bookshop in San Antonio called Nowhere Bookshop:
“Featuring new books, author events, unique gifts, and a coffee, wine and beer bar Nowhere Bookshop aims to be a space for folks to gather to share their passion for the written word.”
* I’m telling you right now that you will pry my double-space after a period from my cold, dead, typing-class trained** fingers.
North Carolina GlaxoSmithKline Foundation Endows Dr. Phail Wynn Jr. Library Collection
The North Carolina GlaxoSmithKline Foundation has awarded $50,000 to the Durham Technical Community College Foundation to create the Dr. Phail Wynn, Jr. Library Endowment.
Dr. Phail Wynn, Jr. served as president of Durham Tech for 27 years. Upon his retirement in 2007, he established The Dr. Phail Wynn, Jr. Collection at the Durham Tech Library. Dr. Wynn generously supported the collection through personal philanthropy until his passing in July 2018. The library is very proud of Dr. Wynn’s collection and we are thrilled that that we can sustain and grow it in the years to come to honor his memory and legacy. When students ask about the special collection it is a wonderful opportunity to tell them about our inspirational former president and his commitment to education, passion for service, dedication to the community, and his vision for the future.
Durham Technical Community College
1980-2007
Dr. Wynn’s collection promotes cultural awareness, tolerance, diversity, environmental conservation, sustainability, and peace. The collection is located on the upper level of the library. Here are some new titles recently added to the collection. Visit our display window at the entrance to the library and ask a staff member if you would like to borrow any of the materials on display.
Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience, and the Fight for a Sustainable Future 
Case Studies on Diversity and Social Justice Education 
How to Work with and Lead People Not Like You: Practical Solutions for Today’s Diverse Workplace 
Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life 
Zero Waste: Simple Life Hacks to Drastically Reduce Your Trash 
Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America 
The Revolution Generation: How Millennials Can Save America and the World (Before It’s Too Late) 
Team Human 
Reduce, Reuse, Reimagine: Sorting Out the Recycling System 
Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students
Open Education Week: March 4-8, 2019
There are worldwide events and webinars this week to increase awareness about textbook costs as barriers to education and the potential for technology to enhance teaching and learning.
Durham Tech Library advocates for Open Educational Resources and provides support for faculty and staff interested in exploring OER. Stop by the Main Campus or Orange County Campus libraries to pick up an OER button to show your support.
Here are some resources to help you learn more:
Open Education North Carolina is an initiative that aims to reduce the cost of higher education for North Carolina students by providing free, open textbooks for the most frequently-taught courses across North Carolina’s colleges and universities.
Grant opportunities are available through OENC now! One Durham Tech instructor has been awarded a $1,000 grant for adopting an open textbook for an ART 111 course for Fall 2019 semester.
Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) offers frequent webinars, research and case studies, and resources for faculty. To celebrate Open Education Week, CCCOER will hold five Faculty Dialogue webinars, each day this week, in which faculty in a specific discipline will discuss the intricacies of teaching with OER in that subject and answer audience questions.
The Open Education Resource Guide from Virginia Tech offers a guide to getting started with open, editable, and lower-cost textbooks and open teaching & learning resources. Especially helpful is the information on finding OER by discipline and open textbook authoring and editing.
SPARC, a global coalition committed to making open the default for research and education, offers events, updates on policies and projects, news, and resources on all aspects of open education.
Do you want to learn more about OER or get involved at Durham Tech? Please contact Julie Humphrey (humphreyj@durhamtech.edu or 919-536-7211 x 1602) for more information. Stay tuned for upcoming events and discussions on campus.
Introducing PaperCut: A New Printing System for Students
PaperCut has launched at the Main Campus Library this week. PaperCut is a print management system used to seamlessly monitor and control printing and copying. With PaperCut students are able to print and copy documents.
PaperCut will be implemented in other computer labs and at other campuses at a later date.
How does it work?
Each Durham Tech student is issued a PaperCut account which is used to print and copy documents across all campuses. When a user prints or copies anywhere on campus, the total cost of the print job is deducted from their account balance. The costs for printing and copying across all Durham Tech campuses is as follows:
· Black-and-white printing costs 10 cents per page ($0.10)
· Color printing costs 25 cents per page ($0.25).
An initial $10 non-refundable print credit is applied to each student’s PaperCut account at the start of each term for which they are enrolled. Students may continue using Durham Tech print services until their PaperCut account balance reaches $0. Once a student’s PaperCut account balance reaches $0 they will not be able to print or copy documents until additional print credit is added to their account at the Library circulation desk. A user can check their print credit balance by accessing their PaperCut account online at papercut.durhamtech.edu/user
PaperCut: Frequently Asked Questions
| Which Students Have Accounts? |
| Any student currently enrolled in a course that has started for the an active term should have a PaperCut Account. Users who do not have a PaperCut account may still print by creating a guest account at papercut.durhamtech.edu by clicking the “Guests click here to Register!” link on the login page. |
| How Do Students Access Accounts? |
| Visit papercut.durhamtech.edu. Here students are able to login and see their print history, reset their Identity PIN (for quick access to copier/printers), and view any pending print jobs. |
| What’s A Student’s Username and Password? |
| Students are able to login to their PaperCut account, the identity Pop-up, and Copiers using their Durham Tech Username and Password. Username: The Username is the student’s last name followed by first initial and the last 4 digits of your Student ID number |
| How Do Students Print? |
| Print your document from your application (e.g. File > Print) You will need to remember the printer you selected to release your document. DOUBLE-CHECK YOUR PRINT SETTINGS (Color, Black & White, 2-Sided etc.) Once the print job is submitted the Identity Pop-up is displayed. Enter your Durham Tech/WebAdvisorUsername and Password, then Click OK. Once the print job is authenticated you will see an additional pop-up informing you that your document is waiting to be released. NOTE: Your document will be waiting to be release at the printer/copier selected in step 1. |
| How do Students Copy? |
| Locate a printer/copier. Press the keyboard icon and enter your Durham Tech Username and Password Select Access Device, then select Copy. Once you are ready select start to begin copying documents. |