President Obama visits the Alexandria Campus

Today, June 8th, President Barack Obama visted the Alexandria Campus automtive program.

Missed the President?

Why not read a good book:

The Obamas: The Untold Story of an African Family. CT2227.5 )23 F57 2011

Barack Obama and Twenty First Century Politics: A Revolutionary Moment in the USA. E907 C36 2010

The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama. E908 R46 2010

Or watch the Video: http://www.whitehouse.gov/live

Get CREATIVE

Sylvia Rortvedt (Associate Dean) and Matt Todd (Collection Development Librarian) traveled to Ashburn, Virginia to visit the "WorkLab" at Creative to check out possible new group study, individual study, and noise abatement solutions for the Alexandria Campus Library.




Look for some Creative solutions coming soon...

What's True?

How do you get your news? Newspapers. talk shows, cable TV, blogs, Tweets, Facebook, network TV, email, RSS feed, smoke signals?

With more information venues than ever before, and with traditional gatekeepers disappearing, it becomes ever more incumbent on the individual citizen to verify, analyse and evaluate the information he receives.

"Veteran journalists Kovach and Rosenstiel (The Elements of Journalism) begin their intelligent and well-written guidebook by assuring readers this is not unfamiliar territory. The printing press, the telegraph, radio, and television were once just as unsettling and disruptive as today's Internet, blogs, and Twitter posts. But the rules have changed. The gatekeepers of information are disappearing. Everyone must become editors assuming the responsibility for testing evidence and checking sources presented in news stories, deciding what's important to know, and whether the material is reliable and complete. Utilizing a set of systemic questions that the authors label "the way of skeptical knowing," Kovach and Rosenstiel provide a roadmap for maintaining a steady course through our messy media landscape. As the authors entertainingly define and deconstruct the journalism of verification, assertion, affirmation, and interest group news, readers gain the analytical skills necessary for understanding this new terrain. "The real information gap in the 21st century is not who has access to the Internet and who does not. It is the gap between people who have the skills to create knowledge and those who are simply in a process of affirming preconceptions without growing and learning." -- Publisher's Weekly.

Check it out today. PN4815.2 K68 2010

More Hours to Study: More Students Served

The Alexandria Campus Library completed it's second week of extended hours to provide increased study and research time for students completing final projects and preparing for final exams. Over 130 students used the library before 8.30am and over 400 students stayed in the library after 10pm, topping numbers for extended hours in the fall term.Carrying on a now popular tradition, snacks were served to students studying late. Healthy snacks like sandwiches, granola bars and dried fruit were the fare this semester, with lots and lots of lemonade.

Thanks to library staff who voluntarily adjust their schedules to make extended hours possible. This is the sixth consecutive year the Library has extended hours for the last week of classes and final exams.

Be sure to visit the Library Webpage to get up-to-date information on Library hours, as these change between terms and for the summer semester.

Altered (Eaarth) Book Exhibit opens

On Tuesday 26 April the Altered Eaarth Book exhibit opened in the Library. The Exhibit celebrates Earth Day (April 22) and was the result of a collaboration between Prof Denny May (English), Prof Lisa Hill (Communication Design), Prof Rebecca Kamen (Fine Arts), Prof Angela Terry (Communication Design) and the Library Staff. Students from Art 132 and ART 140 created the altered books. All of the sculptures are re-purposed copies of Bill McKibben's Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.

The sculptures, including Eaarth Primer created by Lisa Hill and Rebecca Kamen (see Wed April 20) will be on display in the Library until summer.

(above: a view of the exhibit, with Tree of Life)


(above: Persistence of Hope)


(above: Nature Strikes Back).

More photos may be seen on the Art Department's Tyler Art's Life Facebook Page.

Extended Hours

The Alexandria Campus once again observes extended hours for the last week of classes and the week of final exams.The Library will open 30 minutes early at 8am Monday - Friday and close one hour late at 11pm Monday - Thursday.

Library Hours

Monday 25 April - Thursday 28 April: 8.00am - 11.00pm

Friday 29 April: 8.00am - 5.00pm

Saturday 30 April: 9.00am - 4.00pm

Monday 2 May - Thursday 5 May: 8.00am - 11.00pm

Friday 6 May: 8.00am - 5.00pm

Saturday 7 May 9.00am - 4.00pm

Please join us after 10 for Late Night Study Break, when snacks and drinks will be served.

Hanging the Hanging Garden

As part of the campus's celebration of Earth Day (April 22) the Library features a "hanging garden" created out of re-purposed copies of Bill McKibben's Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.


(above: Copies of Eaarth transformed)


(above: Rebecca Kamen (Fine Arts) and Lisa Hill (Communication Design) install the garden)

(Live plants suspended in the Library "living room.")

National Library Week

Celebrate National Library Week April 10 - 16

Alexandria Campus faculty share their favorite books -- stop by the Library today and check them out.

NOVA's Digital Archive headlines Virginia Libraries Journal

Alexandria Campus Library's David Anderson writes in the Virginia Library Association journal Virginia Libraries about NOVA's the digitization efforts (read the article online here):

"We might not think of community colleges in Virginia as institutions with deep historical roots. The Virginia Assembly established the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) in 1966 in order to fill the need for two-year college programs in the state. The fiftieth anniversary of VCCS will arrive in 2016, and that event suggests an opportunity to look back at the history of community colleges in Virginia. At the Alexandria Campus of Northern Virginia Community College, we have already begun this process by developing a digital collection to house and display historical documents from our campus archives. We have identified student publications, meeting minutes, event programs, and photographs as candidates for digitization."

Explore more of the Alexandria Campus's History on this website:
http://www.nvcc.edu/depts/alexandria/history/

Oxford English Dictionary adds new words -- OMG

The venerable Oxford English Dictionary announced recently that its latest update in March 2011 will add almost 2,000 new words: "For the March 2011 release of OED Online, we have selected for publication a number of noteworthy initialisms—abbreviations consisting of the initial letters of a name or expression. Some of these—such as OMG [OMG int. (and n.) and adj.]: ‘Oh my God’ (or sometimes ‘gosh’, ‘goodness’, etc.) and LOL [LOL int. and n./2]: ‘laughing out loud’—are strongly associated with the language of electronic communications (email, texting, social networks, blogs, and so on). They join other entries of this sort: IMHO (‘in my humble opinion’) [IMHO at I n./1], TMI (‘too much information’) [TMI at T n.], and BFF (‘best friends forever’) [BFF at B n.], among others." Read more from the Library's ProQuest Database.

VCU

Come on VCU!!

Read coverage on Virginia Commonwealth University's amazing Final Four Cinderella story

from newspapers around the nation

on the Library Database Page.

Like this article "VCU Rams Say They Can Do It"

And did you know, a librarian actually predicted this outcome.

March Madness

is here.





Check out How March Became Madness: How the NCAA Tournament Became the Greatest Sporting Event in America. GV885.49 N37 E56 2006

The Case for Books

Is the age of the printed book coming to an end? If history is any guide, notes Harvard University Library director Darnton, not any time soon. In this collection of previously published essays, an unashamed apology for the printed word, Darnton, an eloquent writer and one of the world's foremost historians of the book, offers a fascinating history of our literary past and a penetrating look at the disruptive forces shaping the future of publishing. Almost no topic is untouched, from the role of libraries to metadata, the print traditions of Europe, piracy old and new, Darnton's own forays into digital initiatives and the efficacy—even the beauty—of our changing literary landscape over centuries of development. This book clearly has a main character, however—Google. The search giant appears often. While the individual essays are brief, in sum, the book offers a deep dive into the evolution of the written and published word. Darnton offers little cover from the winds of change, but for book lovers and publishing professionals he offers the comfort that comes from understanding the past, and hope, as he places the Internet among a litany of disruptive innovations the book has survived. Publisher's Weekly. (Oct. 27)

Check it out today: Z116 A2 D37 2010

Network Upgrade Nears Completion

Over spring break, the campus undertook a major network upgrade. During this process, internet services, printing, copying, phones, and library circulation services were unavailable on the Library's main level.



Some Library services, inlcuding reference, online research, reserves, and circulation services were available in the Library classroom (room 327) throughout spring break.

The upgrade included running new cables through the public spaces and offices in the Library, including in the 2-story reading area -- requiring the Big Ladder (above).

The Library will re-open, with normal hours, on Monday 14 March.

Spring Break!!

It's almost that time. NOVA will observe Spring Break from 7 March - 13 March.

During that time, the Library will be open from 8.30am - 5.00pm.

The campus will also undertake a scheduled network upgrade during that time. Copying, printing, telephone, and the internet will be unavailable on the main level of the Library. Library services and computer access will be available in room 327.

Library Thief Sentenced to 15 Years!

It turns out Librarians aren't fibbing when they tell patrons the Library Police might come and get them if they don't return their books. The Library Police will definitely come to get you if you check out books with the intention of selling them for profit:

"A Baltimore woman will spend a year in prison for withdrawing thousands of dollars in library books and reselling them.

Evelyn Whye, 53, obtained a Prince George's County library card and went to work. In December 2008, she spent three days hitting various libraries, and she wasn't looking for Dr. Seuss. Whye was after expensive text books, the kind that can break a college student's bank account."

Read the whole story from NBC4: Book Closed on Maryland Library Thief.

(the Library Police!)

Scott Turow wants to protect America's Libraries

Writing in the Huffington Post, author (and president of the Author's Guild) warns against funding cuts to public libraries as state and municipal governments struggle to close large budget gaps:

"Those governments are cutting everywhere they can and public libraries nationwide have been one of the biggest and least deserved losers in the process.

Widespread public access to knowledge, like public education, is one of the pillars of our democracy, a guarantee that we can maintain a well-informed citizenry.

But libraries seem to be losing out in the funding battles, due, in part, to the mistaken belief that they are somehow anachronistic in an age when so many Americans have instant computer access to information through the Internet. This is, frankly, a let-them-eat-cake-attitude that threatens to destroy a network of public assets that remains critical in our country."

Contact your legislator and tell them not to be a Marie Antoinette!

Ask a Librarian -- on your iPhone

Did you know there is a librarian waiting to answer YOUR question -- 24 hours per day?

Just visit the Ask a Librarian page and scroll down to LRC Live to begin chatting privately to a librarian.

iPhone users can download a direct link to their phones and add LRC Live as an app.

Great for research emergencies!

More face-to-face, less face-to-screen?

Professor Sharon Marshall, of St John's College, reflects on the uses -- and abuses -- of BlackBoard in the 21st Century college learning environment (in the Chronicle of Higher Education).

She observes:

"My ideal class—students sitting in a circle, or around a seminar table if we're really lucky, discussing, reading aloud, exchanging hard copies of student papers—had become, in a sense, a figure of nostalgia. It was something I did with students "back in the day."

Gradually it became clear that, given the choice, most students preferred to live online, rather than engage with actual humans in a classroom, even when there was a seeming sense of community or camaraderie among classmates. Being online all the time had become learned behavior that was hard to give up, even for only 55 minutes."

And asks:

"Because technology plays such a huge role in our lives when we are not in school, is it really necessary that we duplicate those experiences and environments when we actually have the opportunity to connect in more direct and immediate ways in a synchronous classroom?"

And concludes:

"The flip side of technophobia is the kind of unexamined technophilia that welcomes everything new and different, whether or not it improves life or teaching, or the lives of students and teachers. I want to find a place, a stance, somewhere in between, a both/and strategy that allows my students and me to, dare I say it, extract the best of both worlds."




Do we have the balance right?

Google does art

Google announced today that it would take its popular street view indoors, making the collections of 17 prestigious galleries available for view online. The art will be digitized through the "gigapixel" process, allowing for extraordinary zoom.



Don't want to wait for Google? Or can't find your favorite painting (or sculpture or print or drawing) -- try ARTStor. the Library's subscription database of online art images. ARTStor provides download capability as well as background information, history, provenance source and rights.