What We’re Reading Wednesday: Favorite Spooky Reads for Halloween

In a repeating series highlighting current and recent reads around Durham Tech, here’s Durham Tech’s awesome faculty and staff’s favorite spooky or scary reads:

As always, if you’re interested in a title or related title, you can either use the call number provided to locate it in the library or request it through interlibrary loan if we don’t have it. Need help doing either of these things or don’t yet have a library card? Ask in the library!

Have any suggestions of books to add to the list? Email Meredith Lewis, OCC Librarian.


Is your department, club, campus, committee, or subgroup interested in participating in a What We’re Reading blog post? The goal of the What We’re Reading posts is to highlight books, professional literature, blogs, or any other things you might be currently reading or have recently finished. Contact OCC librarian Meredith Lewis for more information.

Day of the Dead Display

If you have walked by the Main Campus Library recently you may have seen our new display in our front window. Courtesy of Cambiando Caminos the display is for Diá de Muertos, or Day of the Dead.

Red skeleton demon holding a flower in his mouth.

Observed from October 31st to November 2nd, this holiday is often affiliated with Halloween in the United States. However, this is a distinct and different holiday with its own history and traditions. Learn more below, or if you are off campus click here.

Make sure to stop by and see the lovely display!

Ada Lovelace Day Celebrates Women in Science

The second Tuesday of October is Ada Lovelace Day and celebrates women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics with the hope of inspiring future generations of young women to study and work in STEM fields.

Image of Ada Lovelace

Image from http://www.rejectedprincesses.com

Ada Lovelace was an English mathematician and writer who created the first program for Charles Babbage‘s analytical engine. She is known as the first computer programmer and has a computer programming language from the Department of Defense named after her. (From The Hutchinson Dictionary of Scientific Biography)

Read more about Ada Lovelace and ways to support women in STEM fields here:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/sifting-the-evidence/2015/oct/13/why-ada-lovelace-day-matters?CMP=share_btn_fb

You can also explore these books in the library’s collection which feature Ada Lovelace and other important women in science, mathematics, and history:

Lab Girl cover

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

Rejected Princess book cover

Rejected princesses : tales of history’s boldest heroines, hellions, and heretics by Jason Porath

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

Hidden Figures

Headstrong: 52 Women who Changed Science – and the World by Rachel Swaby

Headstrong: 52 Women who Changed Science – and the World by Rachel Swaby