By: Michelle Clark

The North Carolina State University Libraries and the North Carolina Research Campus (NCRC) will host a lecture series this spring to examine the economic, social, and cultural forces that have shaped–and are shaping–the South. Entitled the New New South, the series will place the region’s current transformation into an information economy into the context of the earlier shift from agriculture to manufacturing in North Carolina.

The NCSU Libraries and the NCRC are in unique positions to further the public dialogue about this transformation. In 2005, the University of North Carolina system and David H. Murdock, owner of Castle & Cooke, Inc. and Dole Food Company, announced a partnership to build the 350-acre mixed-use NCRC in Kannapolis, a small town in North Carolina that has been ravaged by the offshoring of the textile industry. As a world-class research hub where collaborative science is leading the charge for great discoveries in nutrition, health and biotechnology research, NCRC is transforming the former site of the Cannon Mills plant and the downtown of Kannapolis into an engine of economic growth for the region.

In 2009 the NCSU Libraries launched the NCRC Archives to capture this historic metamorphosis in real time by making available a wide range of primary sources on the development, construction and operation of the NCRC.

The New New South series will give participants an opportunity to hear from leading scholars in North Carolina on both the move into the information economy and the previous economic shifts that have shaped the area. Speakers will provide attendees with a nuanced understanding of social, demographic, labor, industrial, and public/private collaborative history of this region, past, present, and future.

Presenters will include southern historians, scholars of the economics of the South, individuals involved with North Carolina Research Campus, researchers, entrepreneurs, labor historians and regional educators and movers and shakers. The series is open without charge to the general public, but will be of special interest to historians, scientists, economists, social scientists, archivists, students, and university faculty.

Scheduled talks

Partnering Transformation: Challenges of a Public/Private Partnership
Dr. Steven Leath, vice president for research for the UNC system and CEO of the David H. Murdock Research Institute
NCRC, Kannapolis, February 23, 6:00 p.m.

North Carolina Workers and the Industrial South
Dr. David Zonderman, professor and associate department head in history at NC State University
D. H. Hill Library, NC State University, March 4, 4 p.m.

Rising to the Research Challenge of the Twenty-first Century: The New Workforce
Panel consisting of Dr.Tom Miller; vice provost for distance education and learning technology, NC State; Donnie Goins, COO and president of Tavve Software Company; and Dr. Larry Monteith, former chancellor at NC State
D. H. Hill Library, NC State University, March 25, 4 p.m.
and NCRC, Kannapolis, April 8, 6 p.m.

Communities in Transition
Dr. Michael Walden, a William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor and extension economist in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at North Carolina State. He will be referencing his book North Carolina in the Connected Age: Challenges and Opportunities in a Globalizing Economy
D.H. Hill Library, NC State University, April 15, 4 p.m.

By: Michelle Clark

by Jason Smith

For the second year in a row, the World’s Largest Student Film Festival will be returning to NC State, starting on February 9.  It’s your chance to show your stuff and make your name in the movie world. The premise is simple: gather together your friends and make a five minute short film with a MacBook, a video camera, and video editing software, all of which are provided to participants free of charge. Selected films will then be shown at a premiere on campus. The top films will be chosen at the premiere and the winners will receive prizes and advancement to the regional finals.

If you’re wavering about entering, let me help you out.  I’m a weathered, wise MovieFest pro—I’ve been there.  Let me tell you my story.

Last year, during Campus MovieFest’s inaugural debut at NC State, I was bitten by the movie-making bug. If you are at all like me, you have become a bit of an armchair critic when any film comes up in the middle of a conversation. I rattle off directors’ names as if I know them: Cameron, Hitchcock, Spielberg (see, you do it too) and then proceed to dissect their masterpieces. Why did I try my hand at this festival? Simply, I thought that I could make a more awesome five-minute Indie film than the next guy. My opinion of short Indie films has always been scathing. Typically steeped in cigarette smoke and dragged to the depths of obscure topics, these films left a bad taste in my mouth. That being said, I jumped at the opportunity to try out a directing gig for a couple days. Where I saw ambiguity I attempted to amplify it and where I saw convention I attempted to defy it. I was going to be an Indie-short director.

I took the first step by setting up a ragtag team of folks. An amateur actress, an amateur cameraman, and I embarked on this journey with the enthusiasm (read, “big egos”) we thought necessary to make the next great five-minute masterpiece. The actress, a 21-year-old female, was to play both a 13 year old and a 21 year old. Seeing as she had no formal training and most likely no experience, I chose her mainly out of necessity. Originally, I posted an open casting call on Craigslist to find talent. Although I received a huge response, most just told me how I could make money online fast or how their particular crème would add . . . . You get the gist. So, I settled on this random friend that had an extra two hours on a Sunday.

Our cameraman was a self-described professional, with a hefty addiction to cigarettes, foul language, and a mild delusion that he had obtained creative genius from listening to copious amounts of fringe folk music and exposing himself to cold weather. I met him working at an Italian restaurant as a waiter and I got into a surprisingly articulate argument with him surrounding my idea for the film. He had a camera and some self-proclaimed skills. Most importantly, he had the time; he was in.

We converged on “The Raleigh Times Bar” for a few to brainstorm our impending project. We came up with a genius plot, script (written on the back of a beer napkin), and premise. Unfortunately, due to the hefty celebration afterward, the following morning none of us could recall the any of the details we had outlined the night before. Even the cocktail napkin had gone missing. We were back at square one–and it was our day to begin shooting.

Once the three of us were thoroughly caffeinated, we decided to wing it. The concept would be simple: no dialogue, beautiful soundtrack, and your typical “girl living vicariously through her childhood memories” storyline with a bit of poverty thrown in the mix. We had 12 hours. Luckily, Raleigh has many wonderful locations to film in and most of the campus is deserted on Sundays. We used my car to shoot moving shots; we used the environment around us; and we captured some admirable scenes. After spending the better part of five hours collecting footage, it was time to edit, which I had no idea how to do. Luckily, my cameraman had very basic editing skills, which helped him through our three-hour editing session. The Campus MovieFest team was also incredibly helpful in guiding us through the process of making a movie. After two library power outages, consumption of more coffee than any person should include in their diet, and having to re-edit our work three times, we all developed a pretty solid understanding of iMovie and how a movie should look.

Unfortunately, due to the prior engagements of my crew, I was the only one that could attend the premiere. I have to say that sitting in that packed auditorium and hearing the silence once it was my film’s turn to grace the screen was truly a wonderful moment. I was, however, quite worried that the audience would not understand the plot. Perhaps because I didn’t understand the story fully myself. The music started and, somewhat to my surprise, the audience seemed be begin to be entranced by my film. At its conclusion, everyone all around me began to whisper to each other.

No matter how much I leaned in, I couldn’t make out what they were saying.  But I’m sure it was positive. Maybe. At any rate, I took it as a good sign. At the end of the day making maybe a film isn’t about making people laugh or cry–at the very least it’s just about getting them talk to each other.

Campus MovieFest: what a wonderful experience!

By: Michelle Clark

Media Contact:
David Hiscoe, NCSU Libraries,  (919) 513-3425

Two of the most tech-savvy units at North Carolina State University are working together to keep up to $250,000 in the pockets of students who take introductory physics courses at the school. A unique partnership between the NCSU Libraries and the Department of Physics has made the required textbook for Physics 211 and 212 openly available online to the NC State community.

The traditional physics textbook sells for $150-$190; 1300 students take the introductory courses in an average year. The newly adopted text, Physics Fundamentals by Dr. Vincent Coletta, is available online through the Libraries’ Web site. The new e-text arrangement translates into nearly one quarter of a million dollars of potential savings for NC State students and their families.

Although students are increasingly embracing electronic means of learning, the economics of the publishing industry, the desire to pay authors a fair price for their work, and all too often the weight of tradition have made such arrangements rare, even as text prices have escalated up to 40% in the last five years.  Encouraged by the desire of the Physics Department to break the mold, the NCSU Libraries was able to strike a deal to purchase a site license for the digital text for all NC State students, faculty, and staff. Key to the new model was the change in approach by the Physics Department along with the innovative approach to publishing supported by Dr. Coletta and his publisher, Physics Curriculum & Instruction. Students who feel most comfortable with hard copy can buy a paper black-and-white version of the e-text at a small additional fee.

“The Physics Department has been concerned for quite some time about rising costs for our students,” says Dr. Michael Paesler, head of the NC State’s Department of Physics. “Most notably, of course, are textbook prices that can amount to an appreciable fraction of tuition for some students. Dr. Colletta’s high-quality electronic text is an excellent solution for our students.”

While the idea originated with faculty members in Physics who were looking for a more sustainable and cost-effective way to provide quality, peer-reviewed textbooks to their students, the initiative to reduce the cost of texts has been a signature theme of University of North Carolina System President Erskine Bowles’ administration. NC State Provost Warwick Arden has also underlined and amplified Bowles’ commitment to reduce the pressures of rising book costs in recent communications to academic officials at the university.

“Our digital scholarship group has long been at the fore of exploring how academics can capitalize on emerging technologies and how those technologies can enhance learning and reduce the costs of higher education,” explains Greg Raschke, associate director for collections and scholarly communication at the NCSU Libraries. “We think this new model is particularly effective for large service courses, where significant enrollments provide good economies of scale and where quality digital textbooks are most readily available.”

Other recent NCSU Libraries’ initiatives to reduce costs for students include providing at least one copy of every required course book on reserve each semester, supplying online reserves for the electronic dissemination of materials within the bounds of copyright law, and Library Tools , an innovative way to use the Libraries’ web site to present custom, class-related library content for every course at the university.

“We will monitor student response to the new digital textbook carefully and plan to increase our e-text offerings in the fall semester with our Optics course,” adds Professor Paesler.

By: Michelle Clark

Media Contact:
David Hiscoe, NCSU Libraries,  (919) 513-3425

For decades the research and academic libraries across the University of North Carolina system have leveraged their collections and those of other research libraries in the region to reduce costs and make the greatest range of materials available to faculty and students. Now, with one easy system on the Web, patrons can search the library catalogs of all seventeen schools in the UNC system and have materials they need delivered in a matter of days.

“UNC Library Express” improves the discoverability of library materials available across the state, creating a virtual library throughout the UNC system and making better use of our universities’ resources by making them easy to find and to obtain.

Students, faculty, and staff at UNC institutions can link to UNC Library Express through their online catalog and choose from resources available across the UNC system (http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/catalog). Books and other items are then delivered by UPS Ground service, usually within two days of the request. The end result: UNC Library Express increases the amount and variety of books and other resources available to all members of the UNC community, whether they are engaged in teaching and learning on campus or through distance education.

UNC Library Express supports the ongoing University of North Carolina Tomorrow initiative, which calls for addressing constituents’ needs from a system perspective, maximizing resources and efficiency, and avoiding unnecessary duplication. The wealth of information that can be tapped from the seventeen libraries’ combined collections will facilitate achievements in all of the targeted areas of that initiative, including improvement of public education, economic transformation, health, environment, and outreach and engagement. By increasing statewide access to critical educational and research materials, UNC Library Express also meets several of the key goals laid out in the 2006 President’s Advisory Committee on Efficiency and Effectiveness (PACE) report.

By: Library Staff

Do you keep an individual subscription to The Chronicle of Higher Education, Science, or Nature? Are you still routing paper editions through your college or department? Do you need access to newspaper content from across the United States? Use the NCSU Libraries’ campus-wide online subscriptions to access these (and many more). Stop routing paper and start saving department funds! Visit the Libraries’ Got Subscriptions? page for more info and links to some of your favorite publications.

By: Michelle Clark

Try the Libraries’ New Search Tool

NC State has long been known for powerful search tools that help you find material for your research and studies.  But we’re ready to up the ante and take the next step toward one-stop shopping—a single search that consolidates all the available materials and lets you find them all at once, quickly and easily.

Breaking down search silos

Our traditional search tools are best-in-class in the library world, but they still often require you to push through several silos of separate databases and multiple tools to discover the resources you need—one tool for books, multiple searches for articles, some uncertainty about where to look for digital media, etc.

The simple, single-search solution

The Libraries’ new search tool allows you to use a single Google-like search box to find and access all the materials here in the NCSU Libraries—and information located throughout the globe.

Through one simple search, you can discover: articles in most academic journals, newspapers, and magazines subscribed to by the Libraries; books, media, and more in the NCSU Libraries’ catalog—both physical and digital; quick links to services, databases, and journal titles available from the Libraries; and a huge collection of books, e-books, articles, dissertations, conference proceedings catalogued and made available through the Libraries new homepage search and powered in part by Summon, a industry-leading discovery service that is serving as our partner.

For exhaustive searches, you may still want to use our traditional discovery tools.  But as a starting point, we think you’re going to find the new homepage search box and Summon search pretty revolutionary. The beta tool now up on our web site gives you a single box interface; it’s as fast and simple as anything you’ll used to from Google or Amazon; and it gives you powerful ways to segment and refine your search once you see your initial results.

Try the new search tool on the Libraries’ homepage and give us your input as we enhance the tool over the next few weeks.

By: Michelle Clark

by Jackie Gadison

Hannah holding Remy, a Welsh terrier.

When Hannah Hope joined the Veterinary Medicine Library (VML) in August of 2009, she found the perfect place for an animal lover—and we found the perfect student employee. First, there was the incredible enthusiasm to gain knowledge about how the NCSU Libraries works and how she could assist learners with library resources on medicine and animal care. Then there was the long history of devoting as much time as possible to animals. Hannah works at an animal shelter in her hometown of Greensboro, NC, where she helps dogs, especially those who have been abused, to achieve positive behaviors through training. That’s on top of making ample time for her own two pets: Pumpkin, a mini Holland Lop rabbit, and an aquatic frog named Bert.

In her first semester at VML, Hannah learned the basics of “how to do things in the library and be creative in finding library resources and information for patrons.”  She takes her diverse work duties seriously as she gains experience.  A junior double majoring in psychology and anthropology, Hannah is also working on a minor in French,  a skill that is often useful with the international health resources at VML. She plans to enter NC State’s Public History graduate program and to become an archivist. We are fortunate to work with Hannah and share in opportunities that present experiences for her professional plans. She sums it up by saying “I love working here.”

Hannah has chosen the right fit and surrounded herself with clinicians, researchers and fellow animal-loving students, as well as the latest scholarly materials. Coming to work each day she passes through the halls of the College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) Veterinary Teaching Hospital.  And when the Randall B. Terry, Jr. Companion Animal Veterinary Medical Center opens in January of 2011, she will be able to look out from the VML onto the national model for excellence in companion animal medicine.  As Hannah says “I will be near the cutting edge for animal care.”

When not at the VML or her classes, Hannah supports the Carolina Hurricanes hockey team as a dedicated season ticket-holding fan. She is also a world traveler, having been to Italy, Monaco, Belgium, France and now Germany as part of her family vacation in December. Hannah plans to continue working at the Veterinary Medicine Library for several more years—that’s our hope too!

By: Michelle Clark

Registration for DELTA’s spring 2010 Workshops and Seminars is now open to faculty, staff, and graduate students. Spring classes start on Tuesday, January 26, and continue through April 29. Over 75 classes including a new Moodle Express: Top Five Basics workshop are being offered. New seminars include, Showcasing Large Course Redesign, Teaching Strategies for Online Group Work, and Life After Vista: An LMS Update for Faculty. Workshops and seminars are offered at no charge.

To register, go to http://delta.ncsu.edu/workshops and click the “Register now!” link.

By: Michelle Clark

The NCSU Libraries is pleased to announce the appointment of Susan Teague-Rector as Web design project librarian, effective January 15, 2010

In this role, Teague-Rector will work on a library-wide team to redesign the NCSU Libraries’ public Web site, including migration planning, content strategy, and information architecture, applying user-centered design methods to gather input and feedback. As part of the Libraries’ communication team, she will collaborate with internal clients and stakeholders to identify needs for content architecture and presentation, and establish workflows for a new Web-publishing environment. She will also contribute to the development of ongoing editorial policies and procedures for the Web site.

Teague-Rector joins the NCSU Libraries from Virginia Commonwealth University, where she was the Web applications manager responsible for the implementation, product development, and enhancement of numerous Web information systems including the main library Web site, digital archives, and other related systems. She led the library through several Web site redesigns, managed Web 2.0 initiatives throughout the library, including Movable Type and MediaWiki software, and supervised the day-to-day operations of the Web team. Her work included extensive collaboration with library departments including digitization, public services, and preservation staff. Additionally, she has developed Web policies, content management processes, standards, and documentation.

Teague-Rector’s recent professional activities include a presentation at the ELUNA 2009 Conference entitled “Location, location, location: A transaction comparison of catalog searches originating from the library homepage and Aleph,” and “Designing Search: Effective Search Interfaces for Academic Library Websites,” published in the Journal of Web Librarianship in 2009. She holds the Master of Science in Information Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a Carolina Academic Library Associate, recipient of the Kalp Scholarship, and recipient of the Dean’s Achievement Award for Best Information Science Master’s Paper. She earned the Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude in art history and in French from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

By: Michelle Clark

Media Contact:
David Hiscoe, NCSU Libraries,  (919) 513-3425

The North Carolina State University Libraries announced today that it will join a partnership with Duke University Libraries and select research libraries from around the country to develop the next generation of software to manage the collections of tomorrow’s academic libraries. The Kuali OLE partnership—led by Indiana University and funded by a $2.38 million dollar grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation—will bring together a community of academic libraries that want to change the way that information is managed in an increasingly digital environment. The project will develop community source software that will meet the needs of the next-generation of researchers and will be made available to libraries worldwide.

Large academic research libraries manage and provide access to millions of items and use software to track many interrelated transactions, from ordering and paying for these items to loaning them to library patrons. The systems currently in use to catalog and track these transactions are largely based on the print collections of the past.  But today’s research library collections are rapidly evolving to include increasingly diverse digital materials ranging from leased electronic journals to digitized photograph collections. Tomorrow’s management software must accommodate and leverage these fundamental changes.

“Research libraries are in dire need of systems that can support the management of research collections for the next-generation scholar,” says Robert McDonald, executive director for the project and associate dean for library technologies at Indiana University. “This approach demonstrates the best of open-source software development, community-directed partnership resource needs, and a market of commercial support providers to truly align with the needs of research libraries within the higher education environment.”

We are delighted to be a part of this great project,” announced Susan Nutter, vice provost and director of the NCSU Libraries.  “The NCSU Libraries has always been comfortable at the pioneering edge of the digital library, and we are most happy to lend our expertise in this next large step forward.”

More than 200 libraries, educational institutions, professional organizations, and businesses laid the groundwork for this initiative by participating in the Open Library Environment (OLE) (pronounced Oh-LAY) project, which was supported by an earlier planning grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and led by Duke University. Based on the broad insight gained by OLE, work will now begin to create a next-generation library system that breaks away from print-based workflows and reflects the changing nature of library materials and new approaches to scholarly work.

In November the Kuali Foundation, a community of universities, colleges, businesses, and other organizations that have partnered to build and sustain community-source software for higher education, announced its partnership in the project. The initiative now funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is known as the Kuali OLE project.

The NCSU Libraries will join with Duke University to represent the Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN) in the partnership. Other Kuali OLE partners include Indiana University (lead); Florida Consortium (University of Florida representing Florida International University, Florida State University, New College of Florida, Rollins College, University of Central Florida, University of Miami, University of South Florida, the Florida Center for Library Automation); Lehigh University; University of Chicago; University of Maryland; University of Michigan; and the University of Pennsylvania.