The Grainger Engineering Library Information Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has received a sub-award via North Carolina State University’s (NCSU) Immersive Scholar program to develop a suite of software modules which will support high-definition library visualization environments.
Illinois was one of five cohort institutions selected by NCSU Libraries as part of a “Visualizing Digital Scholarship in Libraries and Learning Spaces” grant. The large-scale visualization grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundations, awarded to NCSU in May, supports “the advancement of tools and techniques for developing and sharing large-scale visual content for research.” The cohort institutions will meet in December and pursue their own projects over the next three years. All of the grant projects are related to the challenges in creating, disseminating, validating, and preserving digital scholarship for large-scale visual environments.
Grainger Engineering Library’s portable and extensible software modules will be developed with campus user groups and digital scholarship centers, with the final suite of applications supporting digital scholarship applications, design learning projects, and data analysis applications.
“We are very pleased to accept the award and look forward to contributing to the important set of activities connected with the Visualizing Digital Scholarship grant awarded to our colleagues at NCSU,” said William Mischo, acting dean of libraries and university librarian at the University of Illinois. “We’re eager to work with the other institutions toward advancing the state-of-the-art of library involvement in immersive scholarship and knowledge creation.”
“We are delighted to have the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, through the Grainger Engineering Library, participate in the Immersive Scholar Mellon grant cohort,” said Greg Raschke, NCSU’s interim vice provost and director of libraries. “The national network of participating institutions signals the growing significance of large-scale visualization environments for creative forms of research and scholarship. The immersive scholar grant is an important step in unlocking the potential of these emerging forms of digital scholarship by creating shared infrastructure, tools, and experience to increase their impact and reach. Illinois’ innovative work in the past and bold plans for future immersive environments make them an ideal participant in the project.”
For more information, visit www.lib.ncsu.edu/news/ncsu-libraries-chooses-cohort-for-large-scale-visualization-grant .
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