Want to live your best Ms. Frizzle (or Futurama) life and explore the human body in all its glory, but from the comfort of your computer screen? Have we got the database for you!
Continue Reading →Monthly Archives: March 2020
The Census Is Coming! (Well, it’s already here.)
The 2020 Census Day is right around the corner!
Continue Reading →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 →Streaming Video with Films on Demand
Hello, Everyone!
As we move classes online, don’t forget about our awesome streaming video collection: Films on Demand.
Films on Demand has over 43,000 titles with content relevant for all kinds of subjects, from welding instructional videos to PBS documentaries.
click here to see all you can do with films on demandWhat We’re Reading: Highfire by Eoin Colfer
Do you like coming-of-age stories [a.k.a. bildungsromans] and dragons, but in contemporary settings? Oh, and bad guys and mob guys and the swamp? Don’t mind a little drinking and swearing (well, more than just a little)? Want something that isn’t super depressing? Have I got the read for you!
This book was read by Meredith Lewis, the [mostly] Orange County Campus Librarian.
Title: Highfire
Author: Eoin Colfer (yes, the Artemis Fowl guy)
Genre: contemporary fantasy, dragon and boy stories, swamp capers
#ReadGreatThings2020 Category: A book with a one-word title; A bildungsroman; A book about nature or the great outdoors
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 →Celebrate Women’s History Month with videos from Films on Demand
Explore the powerful stories of influential women throughout history!
This documentary about the trajectory of an African-American girl wonder whose mathematical genius would catapult astronauts into space. Born in 1918, Johnson graduated high school at the age of 14, college at 18, and went on to a career with NASA where she broke race and gender barriers. Johnson not only succeeded in a white, male-dominated field, she excelled.
In July of 1920, all eyes were on Nashville, Tennessee as anti- and pro-suffragists fought for their vision of a socially evolving United States. This program chronicles the dramatic vote to ratify the 19th amendment granting women the right to vote, and the years of debate about women’s suffrage that preceded it.
This film explores the role of women in revolutions that transformed the modern world. It includes women in the French and Russian revolutions as well as women in America, like Margaret Sanger, who coined the term birth control and developed the pill which would finally give women control over when to have children.
For generations women have been seen as secondary or supplementary earners. Now women outnumber men graduating from higher education, and are taking their place in the global job market, and enjoying ever-greater financial independence. In this episode, we meet the women challenging professional expectations – from the Amazon to Iran – and transforming society around them in the process.
This detailed program traces the lifelong odyssey of a woman who literally walked out of bondage, changed her name in 1843, and traveled the country as an abolitionist and women’s rights advocate. Along the way she would meet Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln and be further cast into fable by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Interviews with scholars and dramatic readings from Truth’s speeches and autobiography conjure more clearly a picture of this truly heroic woman.
This is the amazing true story of pioneering women, who for a brief moment in the darkest days of WWII, shattered the glass ceiling to become the first women to pilot American military aircraft. Surviving WASP relive their personal experiences and the challenges they faced while ferrying aircraft, flying as test pilots and towing targets for live anti-aircraft practice. They also bring to light their sixty-six year long struggle for recognition and veterans rights.
Films on Demand features more than 40,000 educational films and clips in many subject areas and disciplines. Content from these reputable producers is included: A&E, PBS, BBC Learning, National Geographic, ABC News, NBC News, CNBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, HBO Documentary Films, Films for the Humanities & Sciences, and more.
The Library’s three Films on Demand collections can be found at this link:
http://durhamtech.libguides.com/az.php?a=f
You can also visit our book display on the lower level of the library for lots of inspirational reading. Pick up a Women’s History Month bookmark at the Main Campus library desk.
Smithsonian Open Access: Open Educational Images (and a little bit about copyright)
Have you ever desperately needed the 3-D printed hands of Abraham Lincoln or a mammoth skeleton, but just couldn’t find the right file?
Good news, everyone– the Smithsonian has released over 2.8 million images (high resolution, 2- and 3-D) from across its 19 museums and institutions into the public domain under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, meaning they are available for anyone to “copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.”
Continue Reading →Open Education Meet & Greet Today, 11:00 – 12:15
Durham Tech’s chapter of NCPIRG Students is sponsoring an Open Education Meet & Greet today, on the main campus, in room 2-159. Instructors are invited to stop in and explore Open Textbook options, share best practices, and enjoy light refreshments.
What Happens When Students Take Classes with Open Textbooks?
Yesterday I announced that this is Open Education Week and described the characteristics that make a work “open.” I mentioned that Open Educational Resources (OER) in their digital form don’t cost anything and that print versions of OER textbooks are available at far less cost than commercial textbooks. Why is this important? Let’s talk about students’ needs.