Check out your Library's NEW Popular Book Collection. A selection of contemporary best-sellers, notable titles and controversial books, the Popular Book collection will be updated each month with exciting new fiction and nonfiction material. Borrow any title with your NOVACard for 3 weeks!
YOUR Librarians have been busy getting your Library ship-shape for fall. We've ordered & processed new books, added new electronic resources, installed new furniture, reconfigured computers, cleaned, redecorated, and more. But we also found some time to do some reading. Here's a sample of what the Library staff have been reading over the summer.
Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Time : The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl (Alexandria Circulating F595 .E38 2006)
Lynne Truss's Talk To The Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness Of The World Today, Or Six Good Reasons To Stay Home And Bolt The Door (Alexandria Circulating BJ1533 C9 T78 2005)
To see just some of our new magazine titles and read reviews, check out our new magazine page:
http://www.nvcc.edu/alexandria/library/magazines/
To browse new and continuing magazines, visit our magazine section on the upper level of the Library. Don't miss some of our new international and foreign language titles: Stern and Focus from Germany, the Sunday Times from the UK, EP[S] (El Pais Weekly) from Spain, and more!
For the first time, all 44 computers in the Library now offer a full-range of computing services. All of our computers are equipped with the Microsoft Office suite (word processing, PowerPoint presentations, spread sheets!), disc drives are enabled, and email is available on all stations. All the computers are networked to a printer (10 cents per page for students). And, of course, all of the computers will still serve all of your research needs. Come to the Library to access vast electronic resources, find full-text articles, search the catalog for books, read reference books online, and search the World Wide Web.
We redecorated!
Notice anything different? We broke out of institutional off-white and brought some color into Your Library. Check out our new color scheme in the entrance and career area of the Library.
New Furniture in the Library Classroom!
The Library Classroom (Bisdorf Room 327) got a facelift as well. A new paint job, brand new computer desks, and a new Electronic Instruction system will enhance library classes, research instruction, Student Develpoment Workshops, and LBR110 classes.
Study in Style!
You'll find new, sturdy, study carrels on the Library's main level providing convenient, comfortable study space. Also check out the DVD and VHS players, which also got a face-lift and brand new carrels to make viewing and listening more inviting.
Study in Comfort!
Go upstairs and give our new chairs a test-drive (a test-sit?). These chairs have specially angled bottom rungs to allow for a variety of sitting positions. Study longer, study better, in the Library's improved study spaces.
New Books, New Videos, New Databases!
Your Library is constantly expanding its collection of books, magazines, videos, and electronic resources. All summer the Library Staff have been working hard acquiring new books to support research at the Campus. Check out some of our new titles:
http://www.nvcc.edu/home/mtodd/CurrentNewBooks.htm
We've also added some cool new databases to our existing collection of over 200 electronic resources. Check out ArtSTOR to find full-color fine-art images. Find full-text newspaper articles from the Washington Post and the New York Times dating all the way back to the 1850s! Find full-text encylopedias in Oxford Reference Online. Or find hundreds of thousands of full text articles online:
http://www.nvcc.edu/Library/databases.htm
Don't miss the Library's growing collection of Feature Films, on VHS and DVD -- including classics, foreign language films, and award winners, and international titles.
http://www.nvcc.edu/alexandria/library/video/titlesvhsdvd.pdf
Stop into YOUR Library soon. Check out our new additions. Take advantage of our continuing commitment to assisting students, faculty and staff to succeed here at NOVA. Find one of our Librarians to help you with research or coursework.
Find Us. Find It. Find Out.
And to really celebrate the victory, biscotti and chocolates (in the shape of soccer balls, no less!) were served in the Library.
In June the Library launched a "who will win?" poll on the white board just inside the Library doors. Voting became fast and furious as fans pumped for their favorite teams:
By June 29th, the results of our poll were:
Portugal: 2 *
Croatia: 1
Korea: 21
England: 7 *
Brazil: 30 *
Italy: 17 *
Argentina: 23 *
Germany: 9 *
Ghana: 15
Poland: 1
Trinidad Tobago: 4
Somalia: 12
France: 1 *
Sudan: 1
* actually advanced to the Quarter Finals, plus Ukraine which received no votes in our poll.
Open the Library Catalog (http://vccslinc.vccs.edu/F/?func=find-b-0&local_base=nvcc). Use the drop-down menu to choose "NOVA-Alexandria". This will limit your search just to the Alexandria Campus Library.
Please note that the catalog continues to default to "Northern Virginia CC", and will search all six campsues at once for your convenience.
Check out some of the Library's new and compelling titles. Whether it's the mythology of DC Comics, or surviving office politics, or investigating ESP, evaluating Pope John Paul's legacy or using technology in teaching, there's something of interest for everyone.
Read about these and more new books at the Library's New Books page:
http://www.nvcc.edu/home/mtodd/CurrentNewBooks.htm
Or visit the Library and browse the New Books Display.
Search for other titles in the library catalog:
http://vccslinc.vccs.edu/F/?func=find-b-0&local_base=nvcc
To suggest a title for the Library to consider for purchase, just fill in this handy form:
What was YOUR Library like 20 years ago?
Some things never change. Samples from the Suggestion Book indicate that some current problems and concerns are long standing. Examples include:
What did the Alexandria Campus look like in 1986?
Alexandria Campus Library Today (June 2006):
Summer is a time to throw OUT the old an bring in the NEW. The Library has been sprucing up and shaping up with NEW computer tables, NEW chairs, and NEW media carrels. Come in and check out our NEW look!
(above: Technology Librarian Bruce Carroll in the Library Classrooom with NEW computer tables).
(below: Library Staff install new tables in the Reference area for the OPACs):
Beginning at the "Y" near the cafeteria at 11am, the Blockbuster Book Sale opened to brisk and steady business throughout the morning and early afternoon. Math, science, and business textbooks were especially hot sellers. At 3pm the Moveable Book Sale shifted upstairs to the Bisdorf Lobby (see above). The Library sold over seven carts-ful of books and raised over $500 in support of the Library's materials and programming.
Librarians have fun, too!
The Library once again offered Extended Hours for students finishing final papers, working on presentations, and studying for exams. From 24 April - May the library opened half an hour early and closed an hour later, providing maximum study time to Alexandria students.
This semester also saw a return of the popular "Late Night Study Break" as cookies, candies, and pretzels were served after 10pm.
Library hours for Exams are:
Mon - Thurs: 8AM - 11PM
Fri 8AM - 6PM
Celebrations continued with the Library's third Booksale Extravaganza -- starting downstairs at the "Y" in the morning (a highlight was a visit from Jon Burton's Honors English class -- see below) and moving to the Bisdorf Lobby in the afternoon. After a day of brisk sales, the book sale raised $100 in support of the Library's materials budget. Thanks to all who came out to support the Library!
Happy National Library Week!
(conference attendees check-in at the Schlesinger Center, above)
Librarians from public libraries, university libraries, and school libraries gathered to hear presentations on reaching out to library users, meeting user needs, and finding innovative ways to promote library materials, services, and collections. Some examples of outreach efforts the Alexandria Campus Library is already undertaking are: blogging, offering drop-in mini-tours at the beginning of the Fall and Spring semesters, using the wireless web to provide" roaming reference" service in locations all over the campus, seeking feedback from our users in surveys and focus groups, providing formal and informal library instruction in the classroom and at the Reference Desk, and more!
(Over 80 librarians from all over Northern Virginia gather in the Schlesinger Forum, at left)
(breakfast was served outside the Baker Theatre, above)
(Bill Fleming, Chair of the VLA Region V Executive Committee, opens the program, at left)
(Dave Williams, Director of Learning Resource Services, welcomes attendees, above)
(Virginia Graves, Acting Provost of the Alexandria Campus, delivers introductory remarks, at left)
Presenters were: Priscelle Dando, Head Librarian at Lee Library at Robert E Lee High School; Jamie Coniglio, Head of the Reference Department at Fenwick Library at George Mason University (Go Patriots!); and Rebecca Purdy, Youth Services Manager at Central Rappahannock Regional Library.
Spring Semester Hours (through May 14th):
Monday - Thursday
8:30 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Friday
8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Saturday
9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Sunday
Closed
Or contact a librarian by phone, email, or IM: http://www.nvcc.edu/library/ask.htm
The Library wishes a Very Happy Birthday to Book Review Digest, which turned 100 years old in 2005! A library classic for a century, the Book Review Digest
"provides excerpts from and citations to reviews of current adult and juvenile fiction and non-fiction. Over 7,000 English-language books are covered by the database each year. Concise, critical evaluations are chosen from 109 leading American, British and Canadian periodicals in the humanities, social and general sciences, as well as library review media. Covering a wide range of review media and offering an enormous variety of reviews -- all carefully excerpted to convey the diversity of critical opinion on a title -- Book Review Digest is the most convenient way for patrons to obtain information on prominent new books. "
The Alexandria Campus Library owns the complete series.
(pictured: Bruce Carroll, Technology/Circulation Librarian, with the most recent Book Review Digest from 2005, and Anne Anderson, Reference/ Instructional Services Librarian, with the very first 1905 volume).
A lot changes in 100 years. In 1905
Welcome back to Spring Semester 2006 (and special WELCOME to NVCC if this is your first semester with us!). The Library got the new semester off to a roaring start by conducting Mini-Tours for new and returning students providing an overview of the Library's services and collections to students interested in getting a sight-seeing tour of all the Library has to offer. Check the fliers posted around campus, or the notice-board in the Bisdorf lobby, or check with any Library Staff member to find tour times. 15-minute tours will cover borrowing, computer availablity and capabilities, how to print, where to find help with research, where to go to study with groups, where to find silent study, where to find the Library's Feature Film collection, where to find new editions of magazines and newspapers, updates on what's new in the library, a chance to ask questions plus much, much more. Plus all participants are entered in a drawing with the potential to win Starbucks gift cards! Take a tour today!
Visit the Library FAQ to find out answers to more questions: http://www.nvcc.edu/alexandria/library/libfaq.htm
Library Staff are also busy assisting students with registration, scheduling Library Instruction sessions for faculty, getting new books on the shelves, preparing the reserve collection for a new semester, processing inter-campus and inter-library loans, ordering new magazine and newspaper subscriptions, setting up links to new databases, and helping students find resources and materials for new classes.
Welcome to Spring 2006!
