NC State Time Machine Now Available as iPhone App

Media Contact:

dwhiscoe , NCSU Libraries, (919) 513-3425

WolfWalk, North Carolina State University's mobile tour of campus history, is now also available as an iPhone application. Introduced by the NCSU Libraries in early 2010 as a web application, the tool has now been optimized for Apple's popular mobile device and expanded to explore substantially more sites with substantially more images.

WolfWalk capitalizes 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 deliver a tour of nearby buildings and other historically interesting locations. Users who use a device other than the iPhone can access all new material through the web version of the tool , and owners of devices that don't support GPS or other location-detection methods can still manually navigate through the web site to enjoy a tour of campus.

In addition to covering more sites on campus, the new version of WolfWalk also contains interesting images of student life and special events that have occurred at NC State, from the dramatic civil rights protests on the Brickyard in the 60's, to early shots of tailgating at the newly opened Carter-Finley Stadium (complete with a VW bus!), to more recent photos of the Krispy Kreme Challenge that begins and ends each year at the Bell Tower. The new collection also adds photographic images of many of the prominent members of the NC State family for whom the buildings on campus are named.

The materials that form the basis of WolfWalk's database are heavily drawn from the resources of the University Archives in the NCSU Libraries' Special Collections Research Center, a vast array of documents, photos, audio files, and other historical materials from the founding of the school up through the present.

According to Greg Raschke, associate director for collections and scholarly communication at the Libraries, we are delighted to make these materials even more easily available through the iPhone app. As the official repository for the university, our archives have mountains of incredibly interesting material about the history of NC State; the iPhone app and the expanded web version give us a great way to extend the reach of these materials and to give our donors and the people of North Carolina even more value from the history we collect for them. 

The NCSU Libraries has a long tradition of incubating new technologies for the university and for the library community around the world. Looking forward, we see mobile technologies as a great lever for transforming the services we offer,  explains Susan Nutter, vice provost and director of the NCSU Libraries. The new WolfWalk iPhone app gives us great experience that we'll put to good use as we outfit the new James B. Hunt Jr. Library with transformative technologies. 

The new WolfWalk application is the first of many iPhone apps that the University is currently developing to leverage the huge number of these devices on campus and to explore how mobile computing can drive changes to university learning and life.

The Joyner Visitor Center at NC State also now offers a smartphone tour through the academic and student life areas of main campus for prospective students and their families. The tour ”available from Go Explore as a free download for the iPhone G4 ”gives prospective students insight on how to succeed in chemistry, where their ENG 101 class will be held, what a residence hall room really looks like, and other key tips on life at the university.

WolfWalk is available for free download from the App Store .