Blue Ridge Community and Technical College (BRCTC) is hosting a book signing on December 9, 2026. BRCTC is offering the first 10 students who attend and are registered for the Spring Intro to Linux (IT 102) a free, signed copy of The Linux Notebook: An Introduction to the System That Powers Modern Computing. Students can meet the author and have their books signed from 4 to 5 p.m. at the BRCTC Tech Center, located at 5550 Winchester Avenue in Martinsburg, WV.

When Blue Ridge Community and Technical College needed a new resource for its Intro to Linux course (IT 102), Assistant Professor Adrian Kelley decided to create one himself. The result is The Linux Notebook: An Introduction to the System That Powers Modern Computing, a 115-page textbook designed to help students learn the fundamentals of the Linux operating system.

For Kelley, writing the book was both a practical solution and a labor of love. “First and foremost, we had a need to fill. The online tool we’d been using would cease to exist at the end of July,” he said. “Of course, it’s a topic I love. I’ve been using Linux literally since its inception.” To help students save money, Kelley intentionally designed the book to be as inexpensive as possible:  paperback, black and white, and concise. The paperback edition sells for $24.99 on Amazon, compared to many online learning tools that can cost hundreds of dollars.

Working under a tight deadline, Kelley worked in the evenings after returning home from work. As the first person in his family to attend college, Kelley remembers being told he would never succeed. Today, he is the published author of a college textbook.