Through Monday of next week the D. H. Hill Library will be lit in Wolfpack red to honor NC State’s latest member of the National Academy of Sciences.

The library’s Conservatory and light sculpture will shine out over the Brickyard and surrounding green areas and light up the Libraries’ most beautiful spot to celebrate Dr. Fred Gould’s recent election to one of the world’s most important and prestigious scientific societies. Dr. Gould, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Entomology at NC State, is now the ninth current NC State faculty member to be elected Academy, an honor that brings distinction to the University.

“The NCSU Libraries is a great center of learning and scholarship on campus, both for our students and our faculty,” says Susan K. Nutter, vice provost and director of libraries. “We thought that lighting up D. H. Hill’s most beautiful spot would show just how much we admire the great light that Dr. Gould’s work has shone on NC State. It’s our way of celebrating his success and thanking him and all those who have worked with him for the distinguished recognition they have brought to the University, a recognition that reflects well on us all.”

The National Academy of Sciences is an honorific society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Academy membership is composed of approximately 2,100 members and 420 foreign associates.

Please join us for a lecture that marks the tenth anniversary of September 11:

The World Trade Center: A Complicated History
a talk by Dr. Kristen J. Schaffer

Thursday, September 8 at 4:00 p.m.
Assembly Room, 2nd floor, East Wing, D. H. Hill Library

Before September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center was a much-criticized complex of buildings. Many in the professional and academic communities, as well as among the general public, saw it as an architectural and urban design failure.

Dr. Kristen J. Schaffer, associate professor of architecture at NC State, will discuss the World Trade Center’s history, its relationship to modern architecture and city planning, and its new role as monument. “This lecture will discuss the World Trade Center as an act of creation, by Americans for Americans,” Schaffer said. “[My presentation] will focus on that act of creation and reception, not on the act of destruction.”

Schaffer further explained her approach by saying, “By looking at the history of the Center’s conception, design, construction, and public reception, we reclaim it as an act of American creation and do not cede the Center’s identity to the act of destruction. By entering into its early history we put aside, for the moment, our knowledge of its end. That is not to say forget, but for the time being suppress our knowledge of the future as we walk along with those who created the towers and who could not know its destiny.”

This lecture is free and open to the public and presented by NCSU Libraries. For more information, call 513-3481 or email marian_fragola@ncsu.edu.

Registration is now open for the DELTA fall 2011 workshop series and the schedule of classes begins on Tuesday, September 6. By attending DELTA workshops and seminars, you can explore best practices for teaching online, gain techniques for effective teaching with technology strategies, and advance your knowledge of Learning Management Sytem (LMS) tools.

For a full description of our 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.

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

Professor Rob Dunn

Join us for our first Fabulous Faculty talk of the semester:

Fabulous Faculty – Dr. Rob Dunn
Tuesday, August 30 at 4:00 p.m.
Assembly Room, 2nd floor, East Wing, D. H. Hill Library

Dunn, a professor of biology at NC State, will read from and discuss his new book The Wild Life of Our Bodies. The book explores the how the influence of wild species—including parasites, bacteria, and predators—underpin humanity’s ability to thrive and prosper. Booklist says the work is, ““Nothing less than an every-person’s handbook for understanding life, great and small, on planet Earth.”

Rob Dunn is an assistant professor of biology at NC State University whose writing has appeared in Scientific American, Smithsonian Magazine, National Geographic and other magazines. His first book, Every Living Thing, was awarded the National Outdoor Book Award for natural history writing.

Books will be available on-site for purchase and signing. This program is free and open to the public and light refreshments will be served. The NCSU Libraries Fabulous Faculty Series is made possible by a grant from the Tom Russell Charitable Foundation, Inc. For more information, contact 919-513-3481 or marian_fragola@ncsu.edu.

Welcome back, Wolfpack.  We have something new in store for returning and first-year students alike.

And yes, we’re still crowded.  And will be as long as students keep flocking here to work.  And until the new James B. Hunt Jr. Library opens in fall, 2012.

In the meantime, this summer we’ve been able to add some great new spaces that you’ll want to check out in D. H. Hill:

The Silent Reading Room

There are silent spaces all over the library, especially in the stacks, but the favorite one downstairs–the Special Collections Reading Room–fills up quickly as the semester gains momentum.  So we have closed off a great light-filled space across from the Creamery, outfitted it with almost 70 comfortable Herman Miller SAYL chairs and some solid tables, and designated it a quiet space for individual work.  The tons of power outlets are nice, but don’t forget to look up occasionally from the computer—the huge glass wall down the room’s south side gives a great view of the Brickyard.

The Terrace

Look through those glass windows and you’ll now see umbrellas. And another great place to get the work done.

Back in the day (say 1954!), the West Wing of D. H. Hill was part of the Erdahl-Cloyd Student Center, which sported a great outdoor terrace where dances often spread out into the night air.  Now it’s yours, with 54 seats at tables and some very interesting lounging chairs.  Again, there are power outlets around the entire space (including in the railing), but we think the main draw is the view, the sun, and a chance to get outside and work a bit away from the Hill hive.

New technology-enabled study rooms

Group study spaces have always been a rare prize at Hill, but now thirteen newly renovated study rooms, including six additional ones, are making your chances much better when you’re looking for a quiet place to hammer out the work with friends.

On floors 3 through 8, the large study rooms just as you exit the elevators in the south tower book stacks have been divided in half, outfitted with new plug-and-play furniture that makes it easy to share and display your group work, and geared up with electronic sound dampening that wraps your group in a cocoon of quiet.  One entire writeable wall in each of the twelve rooms is also available to work out problems, outline your project—or just to doodle on to relieve a little stress.

The large group study room just off the elevator on the second floor has also been redone with the same great new furniture and technology.

All these rooms can be reserved at http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/studyrooms/getaroom.php.

D. H. Hill’s new “living room”

Speaking of cocoons, you also need to check out the library’s new “living room.”  On the second floor of the West Wing (up the large steps just past the Creamery), you’ll find sofas, eye (and foot)-pleasing rugs, the most comfortable loungers on campus, a great view of Hillsborough Street—and a quiet place to retreat when the hours with the books and laptop get long. This may be the most pleasing space in the library (well, except for maybe that great view from the Conservatory Astral Bench).   Eight new tables and chair sets in this quiet area add some more much-needed quiet study space in D. H. Hill.

What do you think?

As we’re spruced up D. H. Hill this summer, we’re experimenting with the new spaces to try out new types of furniture and technology that we may be using in the new James B. Hunt Jr. Library when it opens in the fall of 2012.  We’d love it if you’d leave us any comments you have about the furniture and technology on our Facebook page.

If you’re thinking of buying a new computer for the new semester, here’s a great chance to donate your old one to a good cause. And keep those heavy metals from polluting the local municipal dump.

Until September 19, the NCSU Libraries will be teaming up with the Kramden Institute to ensure that older computer gear finds a new home with a student who might otherwise not be able to afford what most of us take for granted—a good machine to get the school work done on.

Kramden Institute Inc. is a not-for-profit charitable institution based in Durham that is dedicated to empowering hardworking, economically-disadvantaged students to bridge the digital divide and advance their academic and personal achievements by awarding them home computers. This is achieved by collecting donated computers to refurbish and reuse. Remember, as of July 1 it’s illegal to put computers in the trash in North Carolina.

Just drop your donations at the main Circulation Desk at D. H. Hill Library and we’ll take care of the rest.

Items that can be recycled

Used computer equipment that we will donate to the students Kramden serves

• PCs less than 5 years old (800 MHz or higher processor)
• PC Hard Drives- 20GB and larger
• Laptops-800 MHz or higher
• PCMCIA wireless cards for laptops
• LCD Monitors
• USB flash (thumb) drives- 64 MB or higher
• PC Memory- 256 MB and higher
• CDRW or DVD drives

Computer equipment and supplies we will resale to help fund our efforts

• Routers, switches, or hubs (particularly gigabit switches)
• Apple computers in working order, less than 3 years old
• NO printers–however, we will accept;
  • New printer cartridges
  • New laser printer toner in original boxes

If you have older equipment you don’t know how to dispose of properly

To provide NC residents with a location to recycle computer equipment, Kramden will also accept the following, when accompanied by a donation of at least $10 per item to cover Kramden’s expenses and to help support its programs.

The following equipment is not used for Kramden’s programs but will be responsibly recycled:

• PCs over 5 years old
• printers
• scanners
• CRT monitors

Chancellor Woodson has said that the new Hunt Library “is without a doubt one of the most exciting projects that NC State has taken on in the last 20 years.” If you think D. H. Hill is great, just wait until Hunt opens on Centennial Campus in late 2012.

With its outside walls almost complete and the interior well on its way, the new library is shaping up to be as dramatic a statement about the greatness of NC State as we hoped it would be.

Want to hear the latest? Want to see what a huge microtile wall can do?  Or see what some of Hunt’s news-making learning spaces will be like? If you’ll sign up for the Hunt Updates blog, we’ll automatically keep you in the loop as we roar towards the opening of this great addition to NC State.

Just subscribe here (it’s one easy step) and we’ll do the rest.

New technology-enabled study rooms

It may be a little less crowded with less of us on campus during the summer, but group study spaces have always been a rare prize at the D. H. Hill Library, no matter the time of year. Now six more group study rooms are making your chances much better when you’re looking for a quiet place to hammer out the work with friends.

Remember the large study rooms just as you exit the elevators in the south tower book stacks?  On floors 3 through 8, they’ve now been divided in half, outfitted with new plug-and-play furniture that makes it easy to share and display your group work, and geared up with electronic sound dampening that wraps your group in a cocoon of quiet. One entire writeable wall in each of the twelve rooms is also available to work out problems, outline your project—or just to doodle on to relieve a little stress. The Herman Miller SAYL chairs around the tables seem just right for NC State: bold design, environmentally smart engineering, and a preference for some comfort while we work hard—that’s us.

The large group study room just off the elevator on the second floor of the south tower has also been redone with the same great new furniture and technology.

All these rooms can be reserved at www.lib.ncsu.edu/studyrooms/getaroom.php.

D. H. Hill’s new “living room”

Speaking of comfort, you also need to check out the library’s new living room. On the second floor of the West Wing (up the large steps just past the Creamery), you’ll find sofas, eye (and foot)-pleasing rugs, the most comfortable loungers on campus, a great view of Hillsborough Street—and a quiet place to retreat when the hours with the books and laptop get long. This may be the most pleasing space in the library (well, except for maybe that great view from the Conservatory Astral Bench). Eight new tables and chair sets in this quiet area add some more much-needed quiet study space in D. H. Hill.

What do you think?

As we’re sprucing up D. H. Hill this summer, we’re experimenting with the new spaces to try out new types of furniture and technology that we may be using in the new James B. Hunt Jr. Library when it opens in the fall of 2012.  We’d love it if you’d leave us any comments you have about the furniture and technology on our Facebook page.

Bonus points

Kudos to the first of you who goes to our Facebook page and tells us what famous bridge inspired the design of the SAYL chairs.

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

Drawing on a strong legacy of using mobile devices to open up the treasures of the university’s Special Collections Research Center to the widest possible audience, the NCSU Libraries has expanded its popular WolfWalk tool and made it available as an iPad app.

Initially launched in 2010 for mobile devices, WolfWalk: A Photographic History of NC State now turns the iPad into a virtual time and space portal. The iPad version of WolfWalk makes it easy for students, alumni, and other friends of North Carolina State University to steep themselves in the school’s heritage, regardless of where they happen to be at the moment.

Earlier versions of WolfWalk capitalized on the location awareness of today’s mobile devices to allow users to give themselves a self-guided historical walk through NC State’s campus. As users stroll around the grounds, their mobile devices detect their current locations and then draw on the mountains of material in the University Archives to deliver a tour of nearby buildings and other historically interesting locations.  The new iPad version provides a deeper, more immersive experience by taking advantage of the more expansive electronic canvas provided by the iPad.

The iPad’s large, backlit screen quite literally widens (and heightens) the visual possibilities for mobile users. So WolfWalk has added two new sections—“Decades” and “Themes”—to explore over a thousand luminous photographic moments held by the University Archives in the NCSU Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center.

Decades organizes classic Wolfpack scenes by time periods, making it possible, for instance, to track the return of the thousands of veterans who entered NC State in the late 1940s or the glorious basketball eras of the 50s and 60s. Themes allows users to browse through historical photographs of student life, campus events, and Wolfpack athletics over the past 125 years.

“The University Archives and our Special Collections Research Center are two of the great treasures of NC State University,” explains Susan K. Nutter, vice provost and director of the NCSU Libraries.  “I love the idea that now it’s even easier for NC State’s friends to use them and to enjoy these riches. And the technological adroitness we have gained by pushing our own expertise forward will be invaluable in the near future as we leverage mobile services to make the new James B. Hunt Jr. Library one of the most technologically advanced learning spaces in the country.”

The iPad version of WolfWalk is available as a free download from the App Store.

Join us for a sneak preview of WMKS: Where Music Kills Sorrow, the final show in Theatrefest 2011 presented by NC State’s University Theatre. Members of the cast will perform songs and discuss the play, which is set in 1935 and features old-time music, gospel and blues. Two pairs of tickets to the show will be given away as doorprizes.

Sunday, June 19 at 3:00 p.m.
Cameron Village Public Library, 1930 Clark Ave

This behind-the-scenes program is free and open to the public and co-presented by NCSU Libraries. WMKS runs through June 26. For more information, call 919-513-3481 or email: marian_fragola@ncsu.edu.

About the play WMKS:
It’s a 1935 barn-style radio show in Southwest Virginia coal country, where old time music, gospel and blues collide. This lively story has oatmeal cookies, the comedy of a romantic triangle, the drama of politics and family dynamics and surprise appearances that face off good and evil. What happens between the toe-tapping music will change forever the lives of the musicians and listeners. Directed by Allison Bergman.