Are you prepared for the transition from Elluminate to Blackboard Collaborate? This summer we will be offering more than five different workshops ranging from *Blackboard Collaborate I: The Essentials* to *Blackboard Collaborate IV: Advanced Techniques for Successful Sessions*, as well as transition basics.

Workshops & seminars are offered at no charge, and are available to all NC State faculty, staff and graduate students.

For a full description of  classes and to register online, please visit http://delta.ncsu.edu/workshops and click the “Register now!” link. [You will be prompted to login with your Unity ID and password.] If you have any questions, or need assistance, please contact us at learntech@ncsu.edu or call 513-7094.

We hope you’ll join us!

Debbie Currie, Collection Manager for Agriculture & Environmental Sciences, sets out the pack.

NCSU Libraries staff members recently donned their Hunger Games names and spent an afternoon in Panem (aka the Centennial Campus Magnet Middle School Media Center) supervising archery, face paint, games, and crafts. They were helping out the school’s Media Center Specialist, Robin Willis, who created the event to celebrate and promote student reading and literacy.  Each year CCMMS students select a “Book for all Readers” to strengthen their school community through a common reading experience. This year the students selected the popular series, The Hunger Games.

The school’s Media Center Specialist, Robin Willis, says, “We choose books that have been nominated that are recommended for 6-8th grades, good for all readers, the first book in a series if it is part of a series, and available in paperback. The Hunger Games was this year’s BFAR winner. Our past BFAR winners have been Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Uglies, The Lightning Thief, and The Angel Experiment.”

Sixty students attended the party and made Hunger Games-themed t-shirts, played games, competed at archery, painted their faces, and generally had a fun time. Robin Willis said, “It wouldn’t have been possible without the library volunteers. The students keep dropping by our library to tell me how much fun they had! I am so grateful for all of the help they provided. ” Library volunteers also had a great time and hope to work with these wonderful students again in the future.

Keisha Poole and and Barbara Weinberg exchange Metadata and Cataloging for an afternoon in Panem.

This volunteer event was organized by the Libraries’ Community Service Committee, which provides opportunities for library staff to engage in group community service activities throughout the year.

Library participants were Laura Abraham, Kristine Alpi, Angie Ballard, Debbie Currie, Marian Fragola, David Hiscoe, Keisha Poole, Greg Tourino, and Barbara Weinberg.

Mike Eisenberg is Professor, Dean Emeritus, and Founding Dean of the Information School at the University of Washington. His life’s work is about helping people to recognize and develop the knowledge and skills necessary to thrive in the Information Age.

Dr. Eisenberg’s keynote address is entitled “What College Students Say About Conducting Research in the Digital Age: Implications for Libraries, Librarians, and Higher Education from Project Information Literacy.”  Project Information Literacy (PIL) is the most extensive and ambitious set of studies about information literacy ever conducted. Based on the results of the PIL work, Dean Eisenberg will offer strategic recommendations for effective information literacy instructional programs that make a real difference in the academic lives, career success, and life readiness of students.

A reception will follow in the Assembly Room, 2130 East Wing in the D. H. Hill Library.

The I. T. Littleton Seminar is presented by the NCSU Librarians’ Association. The annual event is funded by an endowment established in 1987 to explore key issues in the development of academic libraries and to honor former Library Director Littleton upon his retirement from NC State.

When: 2:00 p.m, June 1, 2012

Where: the D. H. Hill Auditorium in the West Wing of the D. H. Hill Library

In the summer and fall of 2012, the NCSU Libraries is planning to move 1.5 million books and other items to the bookBot, the robotic retrieval system at the core of the new building.

This move, approved by the University Library Committee, will:

• place library materials in the locations on campus where most users need them
• help to address severe overcrowding on library shelves and a long-standing deficit in library study seating
• allow us to provide more great learning and collaborative spaces and marshal the latest technologies to deliver even better services.

Keeping our collection on campus and readily available

In the past decade or so, many university libraries have been forced to move large parts of their collections to off-campus storage facilities. Instead, the NCSU Libraries is taking advantage of new technologies to keep our collection here on campus and to position our books and other resources closest to where they are used.  The bookBot allows us not only to keep our collections on campus but also to bring back some materials that have had to be stored off campus in recent years.

What’s moving?

When the move is complete, the Engineering collection will be in the Hunt Library on Centennial Campus where NC State’s engineering program is steadily migrating. The Textiles collection will also move to the Hunt Library, where the College of Textiles will be served by one of the most technologically advanced libraries in the world. Up to 40,000 volumes of the latest research materials published in Engineering and Textiles will be available on open shelving at the Hunt Library when it opens.

Using innovative technology to enhance service and enable great learning spaces

The Hunt Library’s robot-driven bookBot provides the technology that enables this strategic move.

For more details, click the image above for the "book move" website

Because the bookBot takes up only 1/9 the space required for traditional book shelving, it allows us to create more library seating and study areas, such as the 100 bookable study rooms and other technology-rich spaces that will make the Hunt Library nothing less than the best learning and collaborative space in the country.

Users can search the Libraries’ online catalog from any place on campus—or the globe for that matter—and have books and other materials delivered for pickup to the library location of their choice.  If a book is in the bookBot, it will be ready in for pickup at the Hunt Library in five minutes or less.  Or users can choose to have items delivered to D. H. Hill or any of the branch libraries within 24 hours. The Libraries is currently prototyping and hopes to provide a service to deliver materials requested by faculty from the bookBot to their offices via campus mail.

The Libraries’ Virtual Browse system also significantly enhances how users discover information in our collection. Virtual Browse makes serendipitous browsing and discovery even more effective by allowing users to see a digital virtual bookshelf of all items that would normally appear together, letting researchers  explore at a glance other similar materials that their search may not have discovered.  Because Virtual Browse shows everything in the collection, users will not miss the opportunity to know about an e-book or a book that has been checked out or temporarily taken off the shelf.

Making the move easy for you

To minimize any disruption, much of the move will take place during the summer of 2012.  During the transition, the Libraries’ website will keep users informed of what is being moved at any given time, and our online catalog will always be up-to-date and point to each item’s current location. During the move or during the period when books are in the bookBot before Hunt Library opens, just make your request online and we will deliver your books to you at the library location of your choice within 24 hours.  And though portions of floors at the D. H. Hill Library will be roped off for very short periods of time during the move, no study spaces, teaching labs, or meeting rooms will be closed.

One easy place to answer your questions

If you have a question during the move, you can get immediate help by clicking the “Ask Us” button at the top of every page of the Libraries’ website.

The future Gaming Lab in the Hunt Library

Though the James B. Hunt Jr. Library is still under construction on North Carolina State University’s Centennial Campus, it is already—as promised—giving students pioneering, hands-on experience with technologies that they would not have a chance to work with at any other university in the world. NC State’s Digital Games Research Initiative currently supports one of the top video game design and development programs in North America, based in part on the cutting-edge courses taught in collaboration by the College of Design and the Department of Computer Science.  This semester students have had the opportunity to work with a digital palette the size of which they could only have dreamed of in the past, a prototype of the 21-foot-wide, high-definition video wall that will be the centerpiece of the Hunt Library’s Gaming Lab.

Designed to be nothing less than the best learning and collaborative space in the country, the Hunt Library will place cutting-edge technologies in the hands of students and faculty, enabling and encouraging experimentation, supporting technology-intensive projects, and building community by showcasing research and creative work on campus.  Four huge high-definition Christie^® MicroTiles^® video walls, including the one in the Gaming Lab, will provide large-scale visualization canvases that will help spur innovative teaching across the curriculum and give students a competitive edge working with and designing for the latest frontier in digital display.

Daniel Kennedy works on NOL on small prototype of Hunt video wall

Professors Scott Townsend and Timothy Buie from the Graphic Design and Industrial Design programs in the College of Design and Dr. Michael Young from the Department of Computer Science have partnered with the NCSU Libraries to enable their advanced graphic design, industrial design, and computer game development students to work together, using a smaller version of Christie MicroTiles walls to be deployed in Hunt Library, to simulate the complex process of creating games in a real-world commercial environment. The combined classes learned to research the needs of a client—in this case, the NCSU Libraries and the vision for the Hunt Library—and orchestrate the work of industrial design and graphic design students with budding game designers and software engineers to complete a project on a tight deadline.  The students scoped, planned, and delivered NOL, a collaborative pursuit game designed to use real-time data delivered from the NCSU Libraries’ catalog to allow a group of players to work together to guard the Vault of Knowledge, the mystical storage site in which the collected wisdom and secrets gained from the innate human capacity for curiosity and thirst for understanding are under attack.

“The width and scope of the Christie MicroTiles wall gave my students hands-on experience with sizing up and seizing an opportunity that will be invaluable as they move forward in their careers,” explains Dr. Young. “Early on, the students realized that the scale of the visual real estate in the Hunt Gaming Lab gave them the room to develop a much more social game than you usually find in the industry today, one where a much larger group could maneuver together at once, controlling the game with Microsoft’s Kinect system.  In fact, they ingeniously figured out how to combine two Kinects into a single system, doubling the number of simultaneous players to four, something we think is a first in the gaming world.  We can’t wait for the Hunt Library to open so we can further bolster our program by using the whole ecosystem of visualization spaces in the building.”

Students put NOL's Kinect interface through its paces

“The Hunt Library is a dream environment for Christie MicroTiles, a real test bed that uses our technology as a catalyst in the creative design process,” explains Kevin Barlow, senior director, control rooms for Christie. “This educational facility makes use of our technology most adventurously. We are delighted at the way that the students and their mentors have immediately seen the possibilities and are running with them in NC State’s games program.”

In addition to helping develop the game at the core of the project, Professor Townsend’s graphic design students approached the Hunt Library as an unprecedented library space—one where the robotic bookBot book delivery system minimizes the need for book shelves, where large video walls and other technologies dominate space in a way that patrons have never experienced before, and where digital, virtual, and physical environments merge in unique ways. Using the newest in “designing experiences” in graphic and interaction design and working with complex systems of information, the students developed strategies for how to orient users to the new environment.   Library planners will use the students’ ideas to encourage social interaction and collaborative work across academic disciplines in a space that in many ways redefines what a library can be.  “The experience provided a huge competitive advantage for my students,” argues Professor Townsend. “Anyone can future-cast and blue-sky scenarios for new hypothetical technologies and spaces.  But these NC State students now actually have real-life experience in developing for demanding and complex real-life opportunities. It will be a huge proof point of excellence on a resume.”  Walking into the building for the first time, early in the class, senior design student Mandi Gelselman put it quite simply: “I feel like I’ve been handed the keys to the spaceship.”

“From the beginning, the vision of the Hunt Library was to give students and faculty a technology-immersive environment that would make it easy for them to try out their most innovative ideas,” explains Susan K. Nutter, vice provost and director of the NCSU Libraries.  “We are proud and honored that Professors Buie, Townsend, and Young and their students have been able to produce such great results, even before we have opened the building. What a great job of showing the possibilities of what this iconic new space will be able to do for NC State and for the people of North Carolina!”

North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park is currently the East Coast hub of the video games industry in the United States, home to over 30 startups and large, established studios. The industry supports 1300 highly paid jobs in the area, many of them filled by NC State graduates.

Many of those graduates first gain the attention of these employers at NC State’s annual Game Development Showcase. Held this year on Friday, April 27, from 7:00 – 10:00 p.m. in room 1231 of Engineering Building 2 on NC State’s Centennial Campus, the 2012 showcase will feature the work done for the Hunt Library Gaming Lab.  The game will be available for play, and students will answer questions about its design and development, from the initial concept phase, through the definition of technical and artistic milestones, to the effort involved to create a finished product. The Game Development Showcase is free, and the public is welcome.

The Hunt Library is scheduled to open in January 2013.

Annotated map from student interview

With over 10,000 visits a day, D. H. Hill Library is undoubtedly a popular campus destination, but have you ever wondered exactly what our students do while they are here? Ph.D. student Dana Gierdowski and librarian Kim Duckett turned that question into a research project. Next Monday, April 30, at 11 a.m., they will present their findings in a talk entitled “Assessing Student Perceptions and Uses of Library Spaces” in the Assembly Room of D.H. Hill Library.

Over the past couple of years library staff have used a variety of strategies to understand how students do their work as well as their perceptions and uses of existing library spaces and other non-classroom spaces. This presentation highlights one project which focused on students’ perceptions and use patterns in the variety of new learning spaces in D. H. Hill Library’s West Wing. In this seminar, Gierdowski and Duckett will share an overview of the project and key findings.

Dana Gierdowski is a Doctoral Candidate in the Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media Program at North Carolina State University, where she studies formal and informal learning spaces in higher education.
Kim Duckett is the Principal Librarian for Digital Technologies and Learning at the North Carolina State University Libraries.

This seminar is presented by the NCSU Librarians’ Association (NCSULA). NCSULA’s mission is to provide members with professional enrichment opportunities. This event is free and open to the public.

It must be spring. Time for the Friends of the Library annual Frank B. Armstrong Memorial Book Sale on the Brickyard. The 2012 book sale will be held Monday, April 23, through Friday, April 27.

Each year for the last twenty-two years, the Friends of the Library has held a book sale to generate funds to support the Libraries’ mission. Each event is the culmination of hundreds of hours of work by volunteers from the Friends, the Libraries staff and others. It’s a great way to recycle your unneeded books and to support library services and collections–giving NCSU Libraries that extra boost needed to help us remain a world-class resource for the University.

Monday, April 23

5:00 – 6:00 pm – Open to Friends of the Library Life Members
6:00 – 8:00 pm – Open to Friends of the Library members and volunteers
Prices: Hardbound books and media – $4, Paperbound books – $2

Tuesday, April 24

9:00 am to 6:00 pm
Open to the general public
Prices: Hardbound books and media – $4, Paperbound books – $2

Wednesday, April 25

9:00 am to 6:00 pm
Open to the general public
Prices: Half Price Sale, Hardbound books and media – $2, Paperbound books – $1

Thursday, April 26

9:00 am to 6:00 pm
Open to the general public
Prices: Bag Sale, Everything you can fit in a bag – $5. Bags will be provided by the Friends of the Library.

Friday, April 27

9:00 am to 1:00 pm
Open to the general public
Prices: Bag Sale, Everything you can fit in a bag – $5. Bags will be provided by the Friends of the Library.

Donations of books, cds, videos, and audiotapes are welcome at the D. H. Hill Library loading dock, on the Hillsborough Street side of the building, Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. If you have any questions, please call the Friends office at (919) 515-2841.

Chi Vo, graduating in 2012 with a major in Psychology

Hometown: Da Nang, Vietnam!

1. What are your top three favorite books?

This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris

2. What is your ideal job after you graduate from NCSU?

I’ll be teaching English in Vietnam for a year before grad school.  For the moment, that is my ideal job before I embark on my endeavors as a Speech Pathologist.

3. What is your special talent/skill?

I’m a pick-up line and pun extraordinaire.

4. What is your favorite place in the library?

Outside on the West Wing.

5. What do you like most about the NCSU libraries?

NCSU libraries continue to foster an environment where its students can gather to not just cram in information the night before a test, but to be distracted by fellow procrastinators.  Let’s be honest, we’ll look back in relief on the all-nighters spent there, but we’ll look back more fondly at all the people who came along with us.

NC STATE FACULTY

Dr. Jennifer Nolan-Stinson, Assistant Professor in the Department of English

Courses taught: I teach courses in twentieth-century American literature and culture for the Departments of English and Interdisciplinary Studies, and for the Honors program.  Among courses I offer regularly are honors seminars in twentieth-century American literature and society, and interdisciplinary courses in American Studies and technology and American culture.

1. What are your top three favorite books?

This is an impossible question to ask someone who studies reading and teaches literature for a living, so I’ve chosen three books that are fundamental for illustrating who I am as a professor and researcher.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925: The Great Gatsby is a book of almost limitless depth in terms of literary style, cultural resonance, reception history, and in many other ways, and I discover new things every time I read and teach it.

Hamlet, William Shakespeare: In brief, reading Hamlet made me want to teach literature.

Mona in the Promised Land, Gish Jen, 1996: An excellent text for discussing American identities in American literature and American Studies courses alike.

In honor of national poetry month, I feel I would be remiss not to mention a few of my favorite twentieth-century American poems as well. ”Negro Hero” by Gwendolyn Brooks from A Street in Bronzeville (1945), ”Soonest Mended” by John Ashbery from The Double Dream of Spring (1970) and ”Persimmons” by Li-Young Lee from Rose (1986)

2.     If you didn’t work as a professor, what would your ideal job be?

If I weren’t a professor, I would love to be a curator of printed books at a major research library or museum.

3.     What are three things you do on the weekend?

In my leisure time, I like to travel, go to used bookstores, and eat delicious food with friends and family.

4.     What do you like most about the NCSU libraries?

NCSU has a great library system and there are many wonderful things I could mention, but at the heart of all of them are the librarians and staff who work here. From Darby Orcutt, who (among other things) enthusiastically worked with me to build a paperback teaching collection of The Great Gatsby, to Cindy Levine, who has collected resources and led library sessions to meet the special research challenges inherent in the interdisciplinary courses and projects I develop, to those in Access and Delivery services such as Jessica Hosey-Heitzman, who has graciously dealt with my idiosyncrasies in arranging my electronic course reserves, and James Harper, who made a relatively obscure version of The World available to my students so that they could access the original context of a Gatsby review, everyone I have encountered has contributed in countless ways to my teaching and research and I feel very fortunate to have the support of so many dedicated people.

NCSU LIBRARIES STAFF

Jamie Chapman, Facilities Maintenance Technician at D.H. Hill Library

1. What are your top three favorite books?

Where the Red Fern Grows is a childhood favorite that my son is reading right now.

Hammer of the Gods was a book I really enjoyed as a teenager.

Ballad of the Whiskey Robber is a book I am reading now.

2. If you did not work at the NCSU Libraries, what would your ideal job be?

Something in construction management, NHL Hockey player, or Superman.

3. What is your special talent or skill?

I build scrap metal sculptures for a hobby.

4. What do you like most about the NCSU Libraries?

The cool furniture, The HOB, The Creamery, and great co-workers

Tareq Said, graduating in 2012 with a Major in Business Administration – Finance and a Minor in Middle East Studies

Hometown: Gaza, Palestine

1. What are your top three favorite books?

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

2. What is your ideal job after you graduate from NCSU?

Equity/Fixed Income Trader, Investment Banker, or Global Finance Professional (Middle East or Europe)

3. What is your special talent or skill?

I can carry any amount of grocery bags from my car in only one trip, always

4. Where in the library is your favorite place to study?

West Wing (Glass Room) and Second Floor Unity Lab. Learning Commons for group work

5. What do you like most about the NCSU libraries?

The seemingly endless amount of resources that they provide for us. The latest technology is always within arm’s reach. The atmosphere here is great; I have friends that practically live here!

NC STATE FACULTY

Dr. Kate Carroll, Assistant Professor for the Department of Textile and Apparel Technology and Management

Courses taught: Fashion product design, Fashion product development

1.  What are your top three favorite books?

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

The Millenium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson

2.     If you didn’t work as a professor, what would your ideal job be?

Full-time musician/vocalist OR deckhand on an excessively large yacht OR international flight attendant

3. What three things do you do on weekends?

Play mandolin, go trail running, practice yoga

4.     What do you like most about the NCSU libraries?

You can always find a quiet, interesting place to work, read or people-watch.

NCSU LIBRARIES STAFF

Annette Day, Head of Collection Management at D.H. Hill Library

1. What are your top three favorite books?

Behind the scenes at the museum - Kate Atkinson
Atonement - Ian McEwan
Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

2. If you didn’t work at the library, what would your ideal job be?

It’s kind of hard to know what any job is like until you really work in it, so what I think may be my dream job from the outside could really be my nightmare! I think being an architect would be a really interesting and challenging job, or maybe I would be better suited to being a taste tester for Ben and Jerry’s that has to be a fantastic job

3. What are three things you do on weekends?

I recently bought a house and it now means I have to learn how to do home maintenance stuff and yard work. So I would say that my current weekends revolve around trips to Lowes, drilling holes in walls to hang shelves and curtains and trying to figure out what to plant in my yard that I can’t kill.

4. What do you like most about the NCSU Libraries?

It’s an exciting place to work, I have some of the best colleagues you can ask for and we work in an environment that let’s us be creative and try new approaches to old problems.

Michael Ramos, Major in Political Science-Law & Justice

Hometown: Trinity, NC (Born in Stuttgart, Germany)

1. What are your top three favorite books?

Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling

The Alex Rider books

The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo

2. What is your ideal job after your graduate from NCSU?

My ideal job would be to be a lawyer or an officer in the US Air Force.

3. What is your special talent or skill?

I am a skilled dancer of many genres (salsa, hip hop, freestyle, zumba, cardio, traditional, etc).

4. Where in the library is your favorite place to study?

One of the egg chairs in the West Wing. They are quiet and easy to fall asleep in once you are done studying.

5. What do you like most about the NCSU libraries?

Their vast knowledge of computer resources and the abilities of the libraries to suit the needs of any and all students. I just love the libraries and can’t wait to see the new James Hunt library at Centennial!

NC STATE FACULTY

Dr. Lola C Hudson, Professor of Anatomy in the Department of Molecular Biomedical Sciences

Courses Taught: currently VMB 911 (small animal anatomy), VMB 913 (veterinary physiology), IMM 816 (advanced topics in immunology)

1. What are your top three favorite books?

anything by Dick Francis

The Earth’s Children series by Jean Auel

The Runaway Jury by John Grisham

2. If you didn’t work as a professor, what would your ideal job be?

private practice veterinarian

3. What are three things you do on the weekend?

Ride my horse, read, say hello to my husband (crazy schedules)

4. What do you like most about the NCSU Libraries?

The flexibility of the vet med library staff in allowing us to utilize library space for teaching certain topics within the anatomy course.

NCSU LIBRARIES STAFF

Cathy Donohue, University Library Technician for User Experience at D.H. Hill Library

1. What are your top three favorite books?

A Wrinkle In Time: The story revolves around a young girl whose father, a government scientist, has gone missing after working on a mysterious project called a tesseract. My sister would read this book to me when we were young right before bedtime.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: autobiography about the early years of African-American writer and poet Maya Angelou.

Man’s Search for Meaning: Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. I listened to this book on tape. It changed my life and how I live each day.

2. If you didn’t work at the library, what would your ideal job be?

I would be a writer.

3. What is your hidden talent or skill?

I can draw cartoons characters like Bugs Bunny, Xmen, and others.

4. What do you like most about the NCSU libraries?

I love that the NCSU Libraries bring people together through the love of learning. Not just with books but with technology, workshops, and collaboration.