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Open House in the D. H. Hill Library’s Visualization Studio Explore how to see your work in powerful new ways

NRL News - Wed, 2015-01-21 10:58

The D. H. Hill Library’s new Visualization Studio provides an easy-to-use space where you can transform how you see your presentations, present your research, and explore your data. Using the room’s 12 projectors to create an immersive 360-degree view across four walls, the studio allows:

  • Students to work together on group projects, to boost their presentations to new levels, and to study complex ideas and phenomena at a large scale, seeing them spread out around the room.
  • Professors to conduct interactive classes and engaging seminars that surround their students in images, documents, movie clips, and data visualizations.
  • Researchers to work together to explore new ways to describe and communicate their findings visually, compare complex, detailed images, and analyze large maps and graphics.
Drop by and see the room in action

On January 30, 2015, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., the Visualization Studio will be open for you to explore its possibilities. NCSU Libraries staff and experts from the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) will be available to give an overview of the room’s features, demonstrate examples of applications from a range of disciplines, and answer questions you might have about how to make the room work for you. RENCI is a collaborative effort involving UNC Chapel Hill, Duke University, and NC State and was instrumental in developing and deploying the Visualization Studio.

The Visualization Studio is located on the second floor of the East Wing, D. H. HillLibrary, just across from the Unity Lab.

News and Observer: Hunt Library recreating key moment in civil rights history

Rev. King speaking at Durham’s White Rock Baptist Church. Harold Moore, AP.

The Raleigh News and Observer explores how the Virtual MLK Project will use the Hunt Library for an immersive recreation of the 1960 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Fill up the jails” speech in Durham, North Carolina.  The project is using the Library’s technology to allow “historical speeches and sermons [to] be better understood if -re-experienced as closely as possible to the original, rather than simply being read.”

News and Observer: Hunt Library recreating key moment in civil rights history

NCSU Libraries News - Tue, 2015-01-20 10:22

Rev. King speaking at Durham’s White Rock Baptist Church. Harold Moore, AP.

The Raleigh News and Observer explores how the Virtual MLK Project will use the Hunt Library for an immersive recreation of the 1960 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Fill up the jails” speech in Durham, North Carolina.  The project is using the Library’s technology to allow “historical speeches and sermons [to] be better understood if -re-experienced as closely as possible to the original, rather than simply being read.”

“Results” magazine features Hunt Makerspace as creativity catalyst

In “From Novelty to Advanced Research,” Results magazine explores how the Hunt Library Makerspace creates “a place where dreams, and an occasional daydream, come true.”

“Results” magazine features Hunt Makerspace as creativity catalyst

NCSU Libraries News - Fri, 2015-01-09 15:14

In “From Novelty to Advanced Research,” Results magazine explores how the Hunt Library Makerspace creates “a place where dreams, and an occasional daydream, come true.”

Coffee & Viz

Introducing the Coffee & Viz seminar series. Held in one of the NCSU Libraries high-tech spaces, Coffee & Viz is a forum in which NC State researchers share their visualization work and discuss topics of interest. All Coffee & Viz programs are free and open to the public and are presented by the NCSU Libraries. Coffee and light refreshments will be served at 9:15 a.m., program begins at 9:30 a.m. For more information, contact Karen Ciccone at 919-515-3513 or kacollin@ncsu.edu.

UPCOMING PROGRAMS Dr. Helena Mitasova, Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Friday, January 23 at 9:15 a.m.

Hunt Library, Teaching & Visualization Lab

Dr. Helena Mitasova is a professor in Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and a faculty fellow at the Center for Geospatial Analytics. She is a charter member of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) and a member of Open Source GRASS GIS project steering committee. She will talk about visualizing large geospatial data sets and modeling of dynamic landscape processes.

The presentation will also include examples of open source GRASS GIS visualizations developed by students for their course projects using the Teaching and Visualization Lab and Tangeoms: Tangible geospatial modeling system. Dr. Christopher Healey, Computer Science: Understanding Color for Data Visualization

Friday, February 20 at 9:15 a.m.

Hunt Library, Teaching & Visualization Lab

Dr. Chris Healy’s work harnesses visual perception to create visualization techniques supporting the rapid and effective exploration and analysis of large, complex datasets.

“Colour is a familiar concept that we all recognize and use in our day-to-day lives. Understanding how colour ‘works’ is a much more fascinating problem, however, involving the physics of light, visual perception, language and culture, and context. This talk will touch on these issues by discussing them and demonstrating how they affect presenting data with colour. As a practical example, I will show how we used colour to visualize results from the recent 2014 U.S. elections.” Dr. Gary Lackmann, Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Friday, March 20 at 9:15 a.m.

Hunt Library, Teaching & Visualization Lab

Dr. Gary Lackmann is an atmospheric scientist at NC State who studies high-impact weather, climate change, and numerical atmospheric modeling. He will present visualizations that clarify the structure and workings of hurricanes, using Hurricane Katrina as an example. David Hill, Architecture

Friday, April 17 at 9:15 a.m.

Hunt Library, Teaching & Visualization Lab

The Great Fire of London destroyed St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1666. Nearly four centuries later, Professors John N. Wall (English) and David Hill (Architecture) have rebuilt it—in virtual space. Wall, a John Donne scholar, wanted to hear the famed poet and dean of the cathedral deliver one of his most famous sermons in order to experience the event “unfolding in real time in the context of an interactive and collaborative occasion.”

The Virtual Paul’s Cross Project (VPCP) uses architectural modeling software and digital acoustic simulations to recreate the visual, spatial, and auditory experience of Donne’s Gunpowder Day sermon delivered on November 5th, 1622. At this Coffee & Viz lecture, Prof. Hill will present the research and modeling process that created the virtual environment of London’s pre-fire St. Paul’s Cathedral.  He will discuss how digital tools can simulate momentous events in spaces that have not existed for hundreds of years.

Coffee & Viz

NCSU Libraries News - Wed, 2015-01-07 14:34

Introducing the Coffee & Viz seminar series. Held in one of the NCSU Libraries high-tech spaces, Coffee & Viz is a forum in which NC State researchers share their visualization work and discuss topics of interest. All Coffee & Viz programs are free and open to the public and are presented by the NCSU Libraries. Coffee and light refreshments will be served at 9:15 a.m., program begins at 9:30 a.m. For more information, contact Karen Ciccone at 919-515-3513 or kacollin@ncsu.edu.

UPCOMING PROGRAMS Helena Mitasova, Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Friday, January 23 at 9:15 a.m.

Hunt Library, Teaching & Visualization Lab

Helena Mitasova is a faculty member in Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and a faculty fellow at the Center for Geospatial Analytics. She is a charter member of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) and a member of Open Source GRASS GIS project steering committee. She will talk about visualizing large geospatial data sets and modeling of dynamic landscape processes.

The presentation will also include examples of open source GRASS GIS visualizations developed by students for their course projects using the Teaching and Visualization Laboratory and Tangeoms: Tangible geospatial modeling system. Christopher Healey, Computer Science: Understanding Color for Data Visualization

Friday, February 20 at 9:15 a.m.

Hunt Library, Teaching & Visualization Lab

Chris Healy’s work harnesses visual perception to create visualization techniques supporting the rapid and effective exploration and analysis of large, complex datasets.

“Colour is a familiar concept that we all recognize and use in our day-to-day lives. Understanding how colour ‘works’ is a much more fascinating problem, however, involving the physics of light, visual perception, language and culture, and context. This talk will touch on these issues by discussing them and demonstrating how they affect presenting data with colour. As a practical example, I will show how we used colour to visualize results from the recent 2014 U.S. elections.” Gary Lackmann, Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Friday, March 20 at 9:15 a.m.

Hunt Library, Teaching & Visualization Lab

Gary Lackmann is an atmospheric scientist at NC State who studies high-impact weather, climate change, and numerical atmospheric modeling. He will present visualizations that clarify the structure and workings of hurricanes, using Hurricane Katrina as an example. David Hill, College of Design

Friday, April 17 at 9:15 a.m.

Hunt Library, Teaching & Visualization Lab

David Hill was responsible for building the 3D architecture models for the Virtual Paul’s Cross project, and will discuss the process of rendering a historic site for modern audiences.

Rocky Mount Contracting Firm D. J. Rose & Son Inc. Donates Unique Historic Records to NCSU Libraries

NCSU Libraries News - Tue, 2014-12-16 08:32

The contracting firm D. J. Rose and Son Inc., based in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, has donated a major collection of historic architectural drawings and other documents to the North Carolina State University Libraries. Established in 1890 by builder David Jeptha Rose, D. J. Rose and Son is the oldest continuously operating general contracting firm in North Carolina.

D. J. Rose and Son 1940 addition to Rocky Mount Mills as plant gears up to become a major supplier of cotton to the US Army during World War II.

Towering tobacco and textile mills, tall and elegant banks, classical courthouses in county seats, railroad stations large and small, electric power plants and fertilizer factories, hospitals and churches, and commercial buildings and residences in every style—for more than a century the Rose family firm constructed essential buildings of every kind throughout Eastern North Carolina and as far away as Florida and Maryland. Year by year, each generation of the firm filed away the records of their projects in nearly every town in the region.

The donors of the collection, Dillon Rose, Sr., and Dillon Rose, Jr., discovered the significance of the records after exploring NCSU Libraries’ website, North Carolina Architects and Builders at http://ncarchitects.lib.ncsu.edu/. Dillon Rose Jr. saw the biography for architect William P. Rose (David Jeptha Rose’s brother) and contacted the library to ask if the D. J. Rose firm was to be included in the website. Catherine W. Bishir, Curator of Architecture at the Special Collections Research Center at NCSU Libraries, learned from him about the family collection. Rose recalls, “I didn’t realize the importance of what we had until I talked with Catherine.”

To ensure the collection’s long-term preservation and access to researchers, the Roses agreed to donate the collection to the Libraries. The NCSU Libraries secured a matching grant from the Marion Stedman Covington Foundation of Greensboro, North Carolina, to enable the records—many of them more than 100 years old—to be cleaned by a conservation contractor.

The hundreds of rolls of drawings include works by some of the region’s leading architects for whom most records have been lost—Benton and Benton of Wilson, John C. Stout of Rocky Mount, Joseph Leitner of Wilmington, to name a few. Rows of boxes hold thousands of documents that tell the story of changing times and the work of many people, from local workmen asking for jobs to bills from distant suppliers of hardware and machinery. “It is a rich and amazing collection,” says Bishir. “We’ve seen just part of it, and can’t wait to see the rest of its treasures.”

Much of the collection involves railroad facilities—depots, turntables, platforms—especially those for the present Atlantic Coast Line (ACL), the lifeline of the region’s economic development. The company’s location by the railroad linked it to projects near and far, including the rail-oriented warehouses and factories where hundreds of workers sold or processed the region’s principal crops of cotton and tobacco.

As Gwyneth Thayer, Associate Head and Curator of Special Collections, who orchestrated the cleaning project, states, “Thanks to the Rose family and the Covington Foundation, historians and the interested public for years to come can learn about transportation and industrial history as well as architecture in ways that would never have been possible otherwise.”

The Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) at the NCSU Libraries continues to assemble and archive the work of leading architects and builders to make these unique materials available to a wide audience. The SCRC has collected the papers of key architects, including G. Milton Small, Jr., George Matsumoto, and William Waldo Dodge, as well as those of past and present faculty members of NC State’s College of Design such as Henry Kamphoefner, Marvin Malecha, Matthew Nowicki, and Frank Harmon.

The SCRC holds research and primary resource materials in areas that reflect and support the teaching and research needs of the students, faculty, and researchers at the university. By emphasizing established and emerging areas of excellence at NC State University and corresponding strengths within the Libraries’ overall collection, the SCRC develops collections strategically with the aim of becoming an indispensable source of information for generations of scholars.

Late Night Study Break

NCSU Libraries News - Thu, 2014-12-04 12:14

Coffee and donuts during final exams
(Starting the night of December 7th)
D. H. Hill Library and the Hunt Library

Long after the cafes have closed for the night, University Dining will be providing free coffee and the Friends of the Library will be supplying donuts in the lobbies of the D. H. Hill Library and the Hunt Library throughout final examinations (except for Saturday and Sunday mornings).

So put down the books for a few moments, take a deep breath or two, and meet us after midnight to throw off the stress and boost up the energy.

Our thanks go to University Dining and the Friends of the Library.

Changes to library access to limit disruptions around final exams

NCSU Libraries News - Tue, 2014-11-25 16:22

NC State students rely on the Libraries for quiet study space, particularly during final exams. To help ensure that we can meet this need, the NCSU Libraries is continuing changes put in place this summer to reduce disruptions during the critical times around finals.

At the Hunt Library

  • Access during reading days and finals will be limited to NC State students, faculty, and staff, who will need to use their Wolfpack One Cards to enter the Hunt Library security gates, December 4-16.
  • No tours, sightseeing, or events will be allowed between the last day of classes and the completion of final exams.

At the D. H. Hill Library

  • Tours and events will be limited around final exams, December 4-16
  • The Wolfpack One Card will continue to be required for access after 10:00 pm.

Don’t Just Read . . .

NCSU Libraries News - Wed, 2014-11-19 14:09

Looking for an opportunity to discuss the latest popular books with some of the smartest people around (your friends and North Carolina State University’s most engaged scholars)? NCSU Libraries and Wake County Public Libraries teamed up to make that easy with READ SMART, a series of informal discussions moderated by members of NC State’s faculty. READ SMART is free and open to the public and is sponsored by Friends of the Library of North Carolina State University. All discussions are held at the Cameron Village Regional Library, 1930 Clark Avenue, Raleigh, NC 27605. For more information, please call 919-513-3481. Read Smart will be taking a summer vacation in June and July but join us in August for our next program. Upcoming programs:

Thursday, August 21 at 7:00 p.m. Join us for a book discussion of the bestseller Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis. Moderated by Dr. Eileen Taylor, CPA, CFE, associate professor of accounting at NC State. About the book: Four years after his #1 bestseller The Big Short, Michael Lewis returns to Wall Street to report on a high-tech predator stalking the equity markets. Thursday, September 11 at 7:00 p.m. Join us for a book discussion of Cooked, the newest bestseller by Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Moderated by Dr. Keith Harris, assistant professor of Food, Bioprocessing & Nutrition Sciences at NC State. About the book: The more we watch food on television, the less food we actually prepare and cook. Michael Pollan’s new book is a clarion-call for the virtues and values of proper cooking – an essential, defining human activity which sits at the heart of our cultures, shapes family life and is in itself hugely enjoyable. Thursday, October 23 at 7:00 p.m. Join us for a book discussion of The Maid’s Version, a short novel by Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter’s Bone. Moderated by Dr.Marc K. Dudley, associate professor of English at NC State. About the book:

In 1929, an explosion at a dance hall in a Missouri town killed 42 people. Who was to blame? Alma Dunahew, whose scandalous younger sister was among the dead, believes she knows the answer – and that its roots lie in a dangerous love affair. But no one will listen to a woman from the wrong side of the tracks. It is only decades later that her grandson listens to her account and unearths the sorry truth. “Exquisite . . . a pleasure to read.” The New York Times

Donor Spotlight: Dr. Ricky and Kim Bloomfield

NCSU Libraries News - Wed, 2014-11-19 12:51

At 17, Dr. Ricky Bloomfield (’04) had pretty definite plans to attend a prestigious local private university. NC State only made it on his list as “backup school.” Until he visited.

The Park Scholarship he was offered was a significant draw, but it was really the sense of excitement and what he calls “the immersion in innovation” that he experienced on his brief trip to campus that set the direction for the rest of his life.

The Bloomfield family, Ricky and Kim,
with daughters Catherine and Miriam.

Just listing Ricky’s undergraduate majors and minors gives you some sense of what he cherished at NC State. There are four—Chemistry, Secondary Education, Saxophone Performance, and Spanish. He’s not one to be put in a box.

That ability to range wide and deep across disciplines led quickly not only to a medical degree, but to the successful iOS apps company he began while still in medical school. Soon he was engrossed in figuring out new ways that mobile applications could help transform the medical field, letting him, as he explains, “combine my passion taking care of patients one at a time with helping out patients millions at a time with medical technology.” Dr. Bloomfield is currently Director, Mobile Technology Strategy for Duke Health Technology Solutions, as well as Assistant Professor in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at Duke University.

Ricky’s wife, Kim Bloomfield (‘02 in Chemistry and Textile Chemistry), first learned about the Hunt Library on a tour while she was president of the Park Scholars Alumni Society, back when the building was still under construction. “I got excited about it,” she says with some understatement, given the couple’s ongoing passionate support of the new space. “Knowing how much Ricky loves technology and how much I loved studying up in the stacks at D. H. Hill, it was something we became interested in supporting.”

“We are highly into education—and we have kids and want them to be excited about learning. It was a way that I could see getting my own children excited about NC State. And I was sure that the new iconic library would be a benefit to recruiting for the Park Scholarships.” Their two daughters, Ricky explains, will no doubt be NC State, Class of 2028.

“When the Hunt Library was announced, packed full of technology—which is no surprise given NC State’s talents, areas of focus, and research—it really intrigued me,” Ricky continues. “We found out more about it and felt it was something we wanted to get behind.” Right after the building opened, they decided to sponsor and name a student workstation on the building’s 4th floor.

Ricky explains their motivation: “we both went through the Park Scholars program, feel very fortunate in what we were given, and feel an obligation to give back to an institution that has given us so much. We want to see NC State continue to succeed, and the Hunt Library will serve as a rallying point for showcasing talent and innovation. For recruiting, there’s nothing better than taking prospective students to Hunt to show them what NC State can do and hint at the things that they themselves will do once they are here in proximity to all this innovation and technology. Giving back to something that will only make NC State stronger is a no-brainer.”

Their message to young graduates is especially clear. Laughing that they are probably “skewing the age profile of NC State donors down a little,” Kim explains that “we subscribe to the idea that what you spend your money on shows what you believe in. When we began giving to NC State, it wasn’t large amounts—Ricky was still in med school. Recent graduates are sometimes intimidated by hearing about endowed faculty positions or big gifts. But smaller donations made regularly can make a big difference, and they’re more feasible for younger alumni. Our own gifts are not huge, and they did stretch our budget to begin with. But we realized that we can make a huge difference even if we can’t yet endow a chair or name a wing in the library. If recent graduates start from a younger age, this can really make a difference for decades before they enter their golden years.”

As for their investment in the Hunt Library, both have been back many times since the space opened and both are happy, according to Ricky, that it is “living up to its promise as a space where you can let your creativity flow and combine the technologies in ways that are novel and interesting.”

Like their own lives, “things are just getting started. The best is most certainly yet to come.”

First 70 years of the Technician now online

NCSU Libraries News - Tue, 2014-11-18 14:53

As part of our mandate to preserve the history of North Carolina State University and distribute that history widely to scholars, alumni, and the public, the NCSU Libraries has made the first 70 years of the Technician, the university’s student newspaper, available online in a format that is easy to browse and search.

Since it began publishing on February 2, 1920, the Technician has been the school’s most powerful way for students to tell their own stories, to give their perspective on the issues of the times, to influence the direction of the university and the community, and—quite often—to tweak the nose of authority.

The 4000 issues from 1920 through 1990 that are digitized and indexed in the NCSU Libraries’ online collection open a valuable window for historians, social scientists, and others who study the history of NC State and the attitudes and accomplishments of this important slice of our population. They will also be a delight for NC State graduates, staff, and faculty who can now go online and relive their own times at the university—silly fashions, fads, serious issues, and all.

Visitors to vintage Technician issues can, for instance, explore a 1920 sketch of the proposed Bell Tower, enjoy a story on the doubling of the bleacher capacity in October 1921—“that glorious day in football history when N. C. State College will match her strength and skill against the aggregation from the University” at Chapel Hill—or see how the NC State community reacted to the 1970 killings at Kent State University as the Vietnam war divided a campus proud of its long-standing tradition of patriotism and support for the military.

Visits to the campus by John F. Kennedy (1960) and Ronald Reagan (1985) show the range of political interests and views on campus over time, and the yearly April Fools issues establish an enduring heritage of enthusiastic, irreverent, and impolitic student satire and humor.

The online issues of the Technician join a range of other online resources on NC State University history that are available through the NCSU Libraries’ Historical State, Rare & Unique Digital Collections, and Student Leadership websites.

Future plans call for adding issues from the years after 1990 to the Technician collection. To learn how to support this initiative or others from the NCSU Libraries, please visit www.lib.ncsu.edu/giving.

Hunt Library Centerpiece of “Prosperity” Award

Calling it “a smart library for the 21st century,” the Hunt Library was cited as a key factor in the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities’ choice to honor NC State’s Centennial Campus with its second annual Innovation and Economic Prosperity University award as one of the nation’s most innovative and productive economic engines.

Hunt Library Centerpiece of “Prosperity” Award

NCSU Libraries News - Fri, 2014-11-07 10:24

Calling it “a smart library for the 21st century,” the Hunt Library was cited as a key factor in the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities’ choice to honor NC State’s Centennial Campus with its second annual Innovation and Economic Prosperity University award as one of the nation’s most innovative and productive economic engines.

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