NCSU Libraries Tagged to Model Next-Generation Technology-rich Learning Spaces

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

The North Carolina State University Libraries has received a $313,000 grant to develop a roadmap for how twenty-first century libraries can best give a competitive edge to faculty, researchers, graduate students and a new generation of always-connected, technology-savvy, and highly-engaged undergraduates. Enabled by the generous support of a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the NCSU Libraries will lead a collaborative project to prototype, develop, and disseminate plans for how mobile technologies, gesture-based computing, large scale visualization, enhanced reality and other emerging technologies can help academic libraries create the next generation of technology-rich collaborative learning spaces.

Since the 1990s, as personal computing geared up and universities discovered how group work can enable learning and prepare students for today's collaborative working world, the learning commons  has revolutionized the library experience. The NCSU Libraries has been at the fore of this transformation. The 2007 launch of the D. H. Hill Jr. Learning Commons has transformed the campus libraries into vibrant hubs of activity, where students gather to work through assignments, test out ideas with their peers, and work with the iPads, graphics tablets, laptops, and other technology devices they borrow over 100,000 times a year from the library. The Learning Commons is in large part responsible for the up to 16,000 daily visits the Libraries receives and for students insisting that the library space is their most valuable resource on campus. The NCSU Libraries Learning Commons has, in fact, become an international destination, with visits from over seventy-five groups from seventeen states and eleven countries.

The IMLS grant recognizes the leadership that the NCSU Libraries has provided in developing new learning spaces and charges the Libraries and its collaborators in the project to develop a blueprint for the next generation of learning commons, one that fosters the interaction, iteration, and invention that technology enables.

This project to explore and create technology-rich learning environments will develop a three-part model that can be adopted and adapted by academic libraries everywhere. The kit of parts  will provide a set of proven configurations and services that can be used to create successful technology-rich spaces in libraries and other campus facilities. The assembly instructions  will provide guidance on how the parts work together to complement each other and meet the needs of a particular institution. The roadmap  will lay out the design process that an institution would use to create learning environments.

The model will be based on user-centered research that will explore the real-world needs of students and faculty, the challenges they face in meeting those needs on campus, and how spaces, services and technology can help meet those needs. The study will investigate how today's learners want to create and display content, use labs and studio spaces as catalysts for group work, and experiment with new teaching techniques and visualization technologies to incubate more powerful ways to learn.

The D. H. Hill Jr. Learning Commons has transformed the NCSU Libraries and given us so much experience in how great spaces can transform the lives of students who learn here,  says Susan Nutter. It's been incredibly fun and energizing for me, my staff, and the university as a whole. We are incredibly proud to be chosen to carry the torch for the next generation of learning commons. 

The NCSU Libraries will partner in this two-year project with NC State University's Distance Education and Learning Technology Applications (DELTA) group and with DEGW , an international strategic business consultancy that specializes in how the design of physical and virtual spaces helps people and organizations better perform. The prototypes for next generation learning commons will be built and tested in the Technology Sandbox , a technology incubator now being built adjacent to the D. H. Hill Jr. Learning Commons. The Technology Sandbox is supported by grant funds from IMLS awarded earlier this year under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by the State Library of North Carolina , a division of the Department of Cultural Resources. Early results from the grant work will also be deployed to help make the iconic new James B. Hunt Jr. Library , now under construction on NC State's Centennial Campus , the best learning and collaboration space in the nation.

IMLS is the primary source of federal support for the nation's 123,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The Institute's mission is to create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas. According to IMLS Acting Director Marsha L. Semme, National Leadership Grants provide opportunities to conduct research and develop the framework for future projects that have the potential to generate new tools, research, models, services, practices, or alliances that will positively impact museums, libraries, and the communities they serve. These projects encourage partnerships that address national issues of importance impacting education, scholarship, and public service. 