Staff Picks: A New Earth

Available through Interlibrary Loan

Earlier in the year, I decided to read A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, author of #1 New York Times bestseller The Power of Now. I hadn’t read any of his work before, but it had always come highly recommended. I am glad I finally did pick up A New Earth, as it’s one of the most thought-provoking and useful books I’ve read in a long time.

Tolle’s basic premise is that the reason people feel unhappy in life is because they are trapped in a cycle of repetitive thought and emotion, and, therefore, aren’t really experiencing life. According to him, you are not your thoughts, emotions, sensory perceptions, or even your life experiences. You are the awareness behind all of this, the space in which all of this occurs. Your true essence is consciousness, awareness, Presence. If you can awaken to and realize this and recognize yourself as awareness, everything which “happens” in your life becomes much more easy to deal with. This may all sound a bit conceptual, perhaps not practical, but it really does become applicable in one’s life. If you’re new to Tolle’s books, I would especially recommend reading through to at least the end of chapter 2 and then deciding whether to read on or not.

To more fully illustrate his ideas, Tolle uses quite a few quotes and examples from both the Bible and Buddhist sources. With that said, it seemed to me to be a book that people from many backgrounds could enjoy, as it is not an innately religious book. To me, reading A New Earth felt like a form of meditation which had an instant effect on my ability to remain calm in tense or annoying situations. More importantly, I think it is a great tool which can aid people in dealing with their own and others’ suffering with compassion and wisdom. ——Kalyca Schultz, Administrative & Office Specialist

Check out the free webcast discussions about A New Earth between the author, Eckhart Tolle, and Oprah

Did you know…

• You can use your student, faculty, or staff i.d. as a library card?
• We have 22 computer/internet workstations, with 8 more coming, and that printing at the library is free?
• The Brown Library is open to the general public as well as to the VWCC campus?
• You can check out movies and music from the circulation department, on the top floor?
• There is a new microfilm room on the main floor?
• The library opens every weekday at 7:45am? Plenty of time to print off a paper or assignment for your first class!
• You can find some of the semester’s textbooks on reserve for you to use?
• You don’t have to come to the library to return a book? Just drop it in the blue curbside book return in the parking lot near Chapman Hall.
• You can get free bookmarks in the library?
• Virginia Western students can access the library’s restricted databases anywhere there’s web access? Just use the same login and password that you use for Blackboard, and you’re in! 
• There are 31 books in our collection with the word “naked” in the title?

Nobel Prize-Winning Author Dies

Available in the library for check-out

“At five o’clock that morning reveille was sounded, as usual, by the blows of a hammer on a length of rail hanging up near the staff headquarters.” This is the opening sentence (translated) of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, his short, powerful novel describing a typical day in the life of a prisoner in the Gulag——that chain of camps in Siberia where the Soviet Union kept its political prisoners. Solzhenitsyn, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature for novels like Cancer Ward and First Circle and nonfiction like The Gulag Archipelago, died August 3rd at the age of 89 in his home country, to which he had returned after the collapse of the Soviet Union. At one time a prisoner of the Gulag, he was a famous dissident whose writings had already been smuggled out of Russia and published in the West before the Soviets deported him in 1974. For many years Solzhenitsyn lived in Vermont, but he was never happy in the West and went back to his native country as soon as it was politically feasible. The Virginia Western Brown Library has many of Solzhenitsyn’s translated works, including One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which is an excellent place to start if you would like to become acquainted with this great 20th century writer. ——David Hillman, Library Director

For more information, read the AP article “Solzhenitsyn, chronicler of Soviet gulag, dies.”

New Hours Starting Thursday, July 31st

The Brown Library will be open for shorter hours before the start of Fall Semester on August 21st. (Regular library hours will resume at the start of the new semester.)

• Monday-Friday: 7:45am-5pm
• Saturday & Sunday: Closed

Remember, even when the library is closed, you can still access professional assistance, online library resources, and computers for doing class work or research. Check out these alternatives:

Computer Lab in the Learning Technology Center

Other Computer Labs on Campus

Off-Campus Access to Research Databases and the Library Catalog

Ask a Librarian Chat Service

Local Public and College Libraries

Librarian Lays Down the Law

This short, funny clip is from one of the funniest library movies ever–Party Girl, starring Parker Posey. It has everything from romance to jail time, multi-colored tights and illegal parties, and, of course, the transformational life experience of working in a library. 

Black and White and Read all over…

Did you know that you have daily access to 17 different local and national newspapers right here in the Brown Library? Located in the reading area on the main floor, they include:

• Affirmative Action Register
• Barron’s
• Chronicle of Higher Education
• New York Review of Books
• New York Times
• Richmond Times-Dispatch
• USA Today
• Wall Street Journal
• Washington Post
• Bedford Bulletin
• Blue Ridge Business Journal
• Fincastle Herald
• New Castle Record
• Roanoke Times
• Roanoke Tribune
• Salem Times-Register
• Vinton Messenger

The following local newspapers are also available online through Main Street Newspapers:

• Cave Spring Connection
• News Journal (Radford)
• News Messenger (Montgomery County)

For more information on the issues we keep in stock and back issues, check out our main library webpage about newspapers. If you can’t find the issue you’re looking for in paper format, try searching VIVA Full-Text for an electronic version. Many of the newspapers’ own websites have certain complete articles available online as well.

Get to Know Your Librarians, Part II

Lynn Hurt, Technical Services Librarian

 From the time I was a child, I have loved libraries and wanted to be a librarian. It was a long and winding road getting to this goal; however, I finally reached my destination, and the trip was definitely worth it.

I started working at Virginia Western twenty years ago in the Admissions Office, when Admissions was on the bottom floor of the library building. I thought to myself, “If I could only work my way upstairs…”

After working in Admissions for four years, I transferred into the Counseling Department where I worked as an academic advisor for eight years. By this time, Admissions and Counseling had moved to the bottom floor of Fishburn Hall. I would come over to the library on my lunch break and contemplate ways that I could advise students from the top floor of the library: “If I could only move my office over here…”

Finally in 2000, I got the opportunity to take courses through the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, to become a librarian. Although I had already received a Bachelor’s in English from North Carolina Central University and a Master’s in Liberal Studies from Hollins University, this didn’t cut it. A specific Master’s degree is required in order to become a librarian, so I had to go back to college. As our reference librarian, Laura Milliman, states in her introduction on this blog, “Yes, you really do have to go to school for this!”

During my first semester taking library science classes, a wonderful thing happened: the opportunity arose for me to transfer jobs and work in Virginia Western’s library! Working with the experienced Brown Library staff as I was taking classes helped me to reach my lifelong goal. I graduated with a Master’s in Information Science from UT (Go VOLS!) in 2003 and became the college’s Technical Services Librarian in 2005.

As Technical Services Librarian, I do a variety of things. I facilitate the ordering of books for our collection, and then I catalog and process the new books as they arrive. I repair and preserve our older books so that they can hang in there beside the new ones. I work the reference desk two nights a week, and work the virtual reference desk when our reference librarian is unable to. I create the library displays, provide a library tour (in person and online), and cook up fun library activities such as our recent “Word of the Week Contest.” Stay tuned for more fun activities to come!

In addition to all of this, I am an adjunct (part-time) instructor. I used to teach English 01 and English 111 for the college’s Humanities Division, but now I teach College Success Skills (SDV-100) online for the Student Services Division. I also provide library-related workshops for various Virginia Western classes and present seminars for the college’s retention program.

That’s the story of my travels. So, what’s your destination? Be sure to enjoy the trip along the way.

Members of Library Staff Learn About Herbs

Two members of the Brown Library staff——Laura Milliman, Reference Librarian, and Kalyca Schultz, Administrative and Office Specialist——recently participated in the Horticulture department’s Gardening with Herbs class (HRT 198-N1). Taught by Julie Reusch of Village Herb Farm in Blue Ridge, the class included informative lectures on the uses for herbs and the basics of growing and caring for them in the Roanoke area, practical field trips to Virginia Western’s own Arboretum, and fun weekly food breaks during which everyone shared dishes they’d made with herbal ingredients.

Julie’s open and easy style of teaching lent itself to active classroom discussions, and she always encouraged questions. For her class project, Laura created a very useful resource guide, which lists many of the books, periodicals, and articles in the Brown Library’s collection concerning herbs and gardening. Kalyca did her presentation, with an aromatic demonstration, on incenses, which are made from herbs, resins, barks, seeds, roots, gums, and flowers.

Kalyca now has a thriving mini-herb garden in containers on her front porch, and Laura is still nursing the free rosemary cutting everyone received at the end of class. She awaits the day it has grown enough to transplant it to her first container garden. Here’s hoping for a second installment of the Gardening with Herbs class soon!

Meet Your Library Director

David Hillman

I am a native of Roanoke and have been on the VWCC library staff since 1972. Before that I was getting a Master’s in Library Science from the University of Maryland and before that a Bachelor’s in English from William and Mary. My job title is Learning Resources Center Director; that means Head Librarian, more or less.

For 36 years, I have worked in the same building, the three-story Brown Library building on the northern end of the campus. Recently in the college archives I came across layout drawings of this building from the 1970’s. The drawings reminded me of how much has changed since the years when I first came here.

In those years, we had far fewer buildings on campus and were very hard-pressed for space. As a result, all of the departments that now fill up Chapman Hall——Admissions, Counseling, Financial Aid, and Records——were shoehorned into Brown, with Financial Aid on the top floor and the others on the ground floor.  It was actually worse than that because the Brown Library building also contained the college’s auditorium, bookstore, and restaurant/cafeteria! The bookstore occupied the space on the ground floor where we now have the large computer lab. The auditorium was carved out of space on the top floor on the side, overlooking the parking lot, and the restaurant (with its tables and grill) was in the same space where you now find the main room of the Learning Technology Center (LTC). In the 1970’s, the LTC was called the Learning Lab, and it filled the entire back side of the top floor.

As a result of these necessary annexations of library space, the library itself had the use only of about half the top floor. This was bearable because, in those days, the book collections was still small, and it was only later that we grew to the point where we needed the whole floor. Over the years, all of these non-library functions found other homes as new buildings opened up on campus. Eventually the Learning Lab moved to the ground floor of Brown and took over the whole floor, becoming the Learning Technology Center that we have today. The two upper floors of the building are now occupied entirely by the library itself, just as the planners of the building back in the 1960’s intended.

When you walk around campus today and note our attractive bookstore, and capacious auditorium and food area, and the several departments so nicely fitted into the renovated Chapman Hall, think about how all this was at one time compressed into the Brown Library building, and you will appreciate how remarkably this community college has grown since it was established in 1966.

Top 10 Annoying Responses When You Tell Someone You’re in Library School

10. I’d love to be a librarian because libraries are so quiet.

9. I thought about becoming a librarian, but I need enough income to support myself.

8. You need a graduate degree for that?

7. I thought the Internet put libraries out of business.

6. Don’t you have enough college degrees now?

5. I think it’s wonderful that you can pursue a hobby like that.

4. You have to go to college for that?

3. I don’t see much purpose to libraries; I buy all my books at Costco.

2. I’d love to be a librarian because I’d love to read at work.

1. You have to go to school for that?

——Jane G. Gresham, School of Information Resources & Library Science, University of Arizona, Tucson