Library Blog

Today is the last official day of Mental Health Awareness Month. Since taking care of your mental health is a year-long, lifelong process, just focusing on it for one month is obviously not enough, but as with all health awareness days or months, in order to be effective, the focus should not just be on short-term knowledge, but on long-term interventions for change. While most folks find value in treating themselves to short-term relaxing activities*, when that no longer becomes effective or if

Reminder: Durham Tech will be closed Monday, May 29 for Memorial Day. Have a nice long weekend and remember to incorporate some *real* self-care into your daily practices. The previous link is to an article and an episode of NPR's Code Switch that talks about self-care with psychiatrist Pooja Lakshmin, who just published a new book . Also in honor of AAPI Heritage Month and related via the NPR podcast/audio breadcrumb trail, check out the KPOP Dreaming podcast, about growing up Korean-American

The Durham Tech Library is thrilled to introduce our new library team member, reference librarian Adrian Knight (he/him). Adrian has worked in the NC Community College library system for several years and most recently comes to us from College of the Albemarle. A traveler since infanthood, Adrian currently has 48 stamps on his passport with Italy as his favorite place he's visited so far and was actually born in Vatican City. He also loves cooking (especially Italian food) and is excited to

New books at OCC just in time for summer session! Our Library summer hours start Monday, May 15 (though Librarian hours start at OCC the week of May 15). The Main Campus Library will be open Monday and Tuesday 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM and Wednesday and Thursday 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM. The Orange County Campus Library will be open for general use Monday through Thursday from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM; the Librarian will be available on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Library services will be virtual on Fridays-- utilize

National Library Week is April 23-29, 2023, a time celebrate our nation's libraries, library workers' contributions, and promote library use and support. This year's theme is There's More to the Story. Today is Right to Read Day, a call to action to fight back against censorship to defend, protect, and celebrate your right to read freely. The American Library Association has also released its most challenged books of 2022 as part of its State of American Libraries 2022 report [link to webpage

Celebrate locally! Durham's Earth Day Festival is on Sunday, April 23 from 12:00 to 5:00 PM at Durham Central Park. Raleigh's community Earth Day event will be on Friday, April 21 from 5:00 to 10:00 PM at Dix Park. Orange County has several events planned, including Earth Day Celebration Carrboro, taking place on Saturday, April 22 from 3:30 to 6:00 PM in the Carrboro Town Commons. Climate change is a huge issue and can make a lot of folks feel helpless. So--What can you do? While there's no

2023's poetry month bookmarks have “Everything is Exactly the Same as it Was the Day Before” by Ina Cariño, “Allowables” by Nikki Giovanni, "Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale" by Dan Albergotti , "[after Ross Gay’s 'A Small Needful Fact' and Jay Ward’s 'Ars Poetica in Which the Dead Child is Renamed as a Flower']" by Durham's Poet Laureate (2022-23) DJ Rogers, and “What It Looks Like To Us and the Words We Use” by current US Poet Laureate Ada Limón. The file is a pdf, so you can print your

The Library supports the Culinary Arts program and the Durham Tech community with cookbooks, ebooks, databases, and streaming video collections related to cooking, nutrition, food science, and more. Enjoy cooking and baking with this global collection of new cookbooks! We hope you find some inspiration here with new recipes and ideas. We also have cookbook ebooks available through the NC LIVE Home Grown eBooks, which includes a Food and Wine collection. The library also provides the Gale

March is Women's History Month and while we've highlighted #EmbraceEquity for International Women's Day, many of our new books in our Main Campus, Orange County Campus, and Dogwood Digital Library collections highlight the accomplishments and stories of women, both historical and contemporary. Check out these new books by and about women at-- the Main Campus in Durham the Orange County Campus in Hillsborough and some audiobooks in our Dogwood Digital Library (available through your Libby app

I think the real question is-- do we care if book clubs are cool? No. No, we do not care because we're beyond doing what other people think is "cool" and are more interested in doing things that bring us joy and help us explore ideas with openness and curiosity. Plus sometimes there be dragons. The Durham Tech Library is gathering data for faculty and staff reading groups. Take our survey and let us know what types of books and reading groups you'd be interested in joining and if you'd be