Books

Reading free ebooks while social distancing

Among other topics, our March 23 blog post, Finally, a Coronavirus-less message from your library! (https://blogs.nvcc.edu/lolibrary/2020/03/23/finally-a-coronavirus-less-message-from-your-library/), featured a how-to for finding eBooks in the NVCC library. There are resources for free ebooks that are not limited to NOVA students. For example, “HathiTrust is a not-for-profit collaborative of academic and research libraries” that have digitized more than 17 million items, including books that are out of copyright (hathitrust.org).

The Internet Archive’s (archive.org) Open Library (openlibrary.org) allows ebooks to be borrowed as one would from a traditional library. Individuals can sign-up for free and then log in to search for the books they might wish to borrow.

One of the earliest sites for free ebooks, Project Gutenberg (Gutenberg.org) allows users to search for a specific title, browse the catalog, or limit by book category (e.g., classics, children’s books, crime, education, fine arts, geography, history religion, science, social sciences). In addition to English, there are bookshelves for books in German, French, Italian, and Portuguese.

Several sources exist for downloading PDFs of “the classics, ” including ManyBooks (manybooks.net), PDFBooksWorld (pdfbooksworld.com) and Feedbooks (feedbooks.com) – Click “Public Domain” in the top navigation bar.

Two databases are a product of the OAPEN Foundation, a Netherlands-based not-for-profit organization: Directory of Open Access Books and the Open Access Publishing in European Networks
(OAPEN) Library.

• The Directory of Open Access Books (doabooks.org) strives to increase the discoverability of Open Access Books. It includes academic, peer-reviewed books, meaning that it limits its collection to open access publications that meet academic standards.

• The OAPEN Library (www.oapen.org) is a collection of freely accessible academic books, primarily in the humanities and social sciences, developed under a 30-month grant, 2008-2010. During the grant period, OAPEN worked with publishers to build a quality-controlled collection of open access books and digitally preserve the content.

eTextbooks

Our March 25 blog post, Working from home: wfh (https://blogs.nvcc.edu/lolibrary/2020/03/25/working-from-home-wfh/), shared with you the good news that NOVA students have access to textbooks via VitalSource (https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/user/signin). Another vendor, Red Shelf (https://studentresponse.redshelf.com/), has negotiated with publishers to open their digital textbooks to college students. Use your NOVA email address to sign-up and you can access up to seven free ebooks, textbooks included, before May 25, 2020.

Your NOVA librarians are compiling a list of good reads. If you’re reading an interesting book, please let us know the title and why you think it’s a good book to recommend to others. We’ll add it to the list and share it in the NOVA community. Simply complete the form below.

Books

National Emergency Library

The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, has recently announced the  National Emergency Library, a collection of books that supports emergency remote teaching, research activities, independent scholarship, and intellectual stimulation while universities, schools, training centers, and libraries are closed. Learn more.

Signing up for an Internet Archive account is free and open to the world.  Please visit https://archive.org/account/signup. 

Does the National Emergency Library have textbooks? They have older textbooks that have been donated from libraries, but not any recent materials.

If you need a textbook for your course, contact the NOVA Bookstore for information about the VitalSource digital textbook borrowing program.

Fun

Friday Fun

Video
“Sometimes crying or laughing are the only options left, and laughing feels better right now.”
― Veronica Roth, American author

Nick Heath, a British sports commentator and journalist, has taken to commenting on ordinary people going about their daily activities in lieu of no live sports due to the COVID-19 pandemic…with hilarious results! View his twitter feed for more  @nickheathsports.

Library Resources

Working From Home (wfh)

For the foreseeable future, many of us will be working from home (wfh). Resources can help those unsure of what may await us as remote workers, including books. NOVA librarians have searched the library catalog for titles that might ease the path. All are available as eBooks, so while our physical libraries are closed, check out these titles:

In 2011, Knowledge@Wharton created a podcast, From Freelancers to Telecommuters: Succeeding in the New World of Solitary Work. For advice as you make the transition from working in an office along with colleagues, listen to the podcast or read the transcript.

Assisting Faculty

NOVA has done an admirable job in supporting faculty as we transition to online instruction. Inside Higher Ed and The Chronicle of Higher Education have been providing practical guidance applicable to the novice online instructor as well as those who’ve been teaching online for a while. Our top choices for reading this month include Going Online in a Hurry: What to Do and Where to Start by Michelle D. Miller, and So You Want to Temporarily Teach Online by Stephanie Moore and Charles B. Hodges.

For Students

NOVA’s Bookstores have joined with VitalSource, an online digital textbook vendor. This means that NOVA students will have free access to textbooks available through VitalSource through the Spring 2020 term. Students can register here using their NOVA email address (there is a link at the bottom to create a VitalSource account). Once you gain access, explore VitalSource’s Bookshelf to check if your assigned textbook is available, and voila!

As learning shifts online, even the best of students, accustomed to learning in a physical classroom with an instructor present, can feel unsure how to proceed. Coursera has been offering courses to students online since 2011. In response to Covid-19, their learning community has compiled a list of tips for first-time online learners, beginning with setting daily study goals and creating a dedicated study space. For elaboration on these and other tips, click here.

Podcasts

Podcasts are a great resource for learning as well as entertainment. As we cope with tech resets in our wfh environment, take a listen to PwC-UK’s s A-Z of Tech podcast series. The latest episode (12), K is for kids, covers how to “teach children about their digital rights and protect them from online harms.” Subscribe to the series in iTunes, SoundCloud, Acast, or Spotify.

Speaking of Children

Time and Newsweek were once the go-to weeklies for news coverage. TIME for Kids is now available in four grade-specific digital editions (K-1, G2, G3-4, and G5-6). There is even a website for teachers and parents with teaching materials for the lessons. Also, on the site is an archive of their financial literacy monthly magazine designed to help children learn about managing money on an age-appropriate level.

There have been many technology resource lists compiled in recent days. TechforLearners.org offers free grade-specific tech lessons curated from a wide range of education tech organizations. Users can specify the grade level in which they are interested (PK-5, 6-8, 9-12, higher ed, workforce) and content (e.g., math, science, reading, writing, social studies).

Return to this blog soon for additional resources to make you a successful educator, student, and worker-from-home.

Library Resources

Finally, a Coronavirus-less message from your library!

Now that many of us have spent at least a week at home getting acclimated to remote learning, it’s time to breathe again. Why not look at the coming weeks as an opportunity to read that book you’ve always wanted to tackle? Although you can’t come to the library on campus to roam the stacks seeking a physical book to borrow, you can visit our library virtually. Search in “Books & eBooks” and look for ways to limit to “full text online,” or see How to Find and Download eBooks for a comprehensive list of all the databases offering eBooks to the NOVA community. For those who want to listen to a book rather than read it, explore the audio books available online in Overdrive Audio.

If you’ve been spending too much time binging on Netflix, how about trying a documentary for a change? You can access thousands of movies through the college’s access to Kanopy. Explore Kanopy and other free online video collections linked in the library’s Guide to Streaming Video.

Finally, think of these weeks as a concentrated time period to learn a new language. There are over 70 languages to choose from in Mango. You can start learning a language as a novice; for most languages, that would mean Chapter 1, Small talk. If what you need is a language “refresher,” just jump right in and explore the listening and reading activities available for the language(s) you already speak. Your myNOVA login (email address/password) will get you remote access to these databases.

In the coming weeks, we’ll keep this blog active with additional learning opportunities that support your formal coursework. If you’ve been curious about how to do something in the library, learning the ins-and-outs of a particular database, or identifying tools for safe exploration of the web, send a request to LO-library@nvcc.edu and we’ll try to cover the topic in upcoming blog posts. In the meantime, stay healthy!

Books

Banned Books Week 2018

If you haven’t already, stop by and take a look at the Banned Books Week 2018 display in the Loudoun Campus Library, LC 302.

Banned Books Week was launched in the 1980s, a time of increased challenges, organized protests, and the Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982) Supreme Court case, which ruled that school officials can’t ban books in libraries simply because of their content.

The books featured in our display have all been targeted with removal or restricted in libraries and schools. By focusing on efforts across the country to remove or restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship.

Banned Books Week offers an opportunity for readers to voice censorship concerns, celebrate free expression and show their communities the importance of intellectual freedom.

Fight censorship, keep books available in libraries, and promote the freedom to read!

The display was curated  by library staff member Maddie Quick with  commentary provided by students from Professor Shirley Nuhn’s ESL 52 class. 

Books

2016 End of Year Staff Picks!

Howdy y’all,

If you’re like any of the librarians here at Loudoun Campus Library, you’re probably looking for a good book to read while the college shuts down for Winter Break. Well, look no further! Here are some picks from our staff members for you to peruse. Some of the selections were published in 2016, and some were simply read in 2016, but all of them are mighty good reads.

If you’re intrigued, click on the image to be taken to the catalog record in the NOVA Libraries system, where you can place a hold on the book!

Happy Holidays! Happy Winter Break! Take a Load Off! Cheers!

Chrystie Greges, Collection Development Librarian

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

My favorite read this year was Elizabeth Gilbert’s novel The Signature of All Things. One of the main characters is a brilliant woman who dedicates her life to the study of moss, and she develops a theory of evolution along the way. Amazingly this makes for a beautiful and adventurous page turner. Trust me. It is glorious.

17465453

Courtney Hunt, Reference Specialist

Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik

For fans of the stalwart Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (or just interested parties), this is a must read. Coming out of a blog project paying homage to Ginsburg’s lengthy law record, the two authors of this book gathered personal recollections, photographs, and a solid biographical history of RBG. It is a quick read and immensely interesting. It also offers a good perspective on what it may be like to work with those who don’t necessarily agree with you, as well as sheds light on the operations of the Supreme Court. Recommended reading for sure!

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Eliza Selandar, Librarian

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

This was a quick, lovely read. It’s a memoir of sorts—written by a neurosurgeon dying of lung cancer who also had advanced degrees in philosophy and literature—as well as a meditation on meaning, life, God, family, time, work. Everyone dies, he muses, but everyone has some life. How much life, we don’t know. Make it mean something.

When Breath Becomes Air

Julie Combs, Emerging Technologies Librarian

Girl in the Dark: A Memoir by Anna Lyndsey

A fascinating memoir about a young women who succumbs to living in darkness after developing a painful and debilitating sensitivity to light.

Girl in the Dark

Marion Karol, Circulation Specialist

The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons  by Sam Kean

Through the misfortune of head wounds, strokes, addictions, and other horrendous accidents Sam Kean pulls the reader into a world of medical oddities that have changed the way that we understand the brain. Kean explains how the brain is supposed to work and how it can malfunction, how it is altered after trauma, and how the medical oddities have influenced the scientific discoveries made today. The book is witty, fun, and a fast read that you won’t want to put down.

The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery

*All images were taken from the GoodReads website, where you can read more reviews on each of these books.

Books, LO Campus Displays

LGBT History Month and Welcome to Our Blog!

Hello Loudoun Campus Library users! This is the new blog for your library. You can follow us here for longer updates than you might find on social media.

To get us started…this month is LGBT History Month, and today’s post is featuring some books on LGBTQ  artists that you can find right here at your campus library!

LGBT History Month & Robert Mapplethorpe
Loudoun Campus Library celebrates LGBT History Month during October. If you’re interested in this book on the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, click on the image to request it!

LGBT History Month is put on by Equality Forum every year, and if you are interested in learning more about the official month, you can visit their site here.

For us at Loudoun Campus Library, LGBTQ History Month is simply about celebrating the diversity our community! We have put together a display on the 3rd floor of some LGBT artists, musicians and writers and those who have dealt with those themes in their work. Please feel free to come peruse and check one out today!

Here are some of the titles on display…click on the thumbnail to request the item or see more information! The images were found on GoodReads, where you can also go to find numerous reviews of each item.

Image result for annie leibovitz at work
Annie Leibovitz is a photographer best known for her photographs of high profile celebrities and politicians. In this book, she describes the history of her career and some of the events that helped to shape it.
Romaine Brooks was an artist considered part of the Symbolist movement working in France in the early twentieth century. She was famously a lesbian whose arguably most important relationship was to a woman named Natalie Barney. This book chronicles that relationship and the time in which these women lived.
Interested in cinema? This book might be for you! As the title states, this book is a history of gay and lesbian film in America. Some sample chapter titles include “Hollywood and the Sexual Revolution” and “A Matter of Life and Death, AIDS, activism, film and video” among several others.

There are many more from where that came from! Come visit the library to check out the display anytime during October.