VFF: The Hunt Library: A Storytelling Building

Almost 800 square feet of pixel space is integrated into the architecture throughout the James B. Hunt Jr. Library. This combination of digital media and physical space allows for new kinds of communication that augment visualizations with the corporeal qualities humans love: closeness, touch, immediacy, movement, and face-to-face conversation. While these large-scale visualization spaces promise to facilitate new approaches to the traditional research process, it will take time and effort to figure out the best way to utilize their abilities in the research workflow. As we explore those possibilities, the NCSU Libraries has also pursued a strategy that focuses on using our video walls for public engagement and scholarly communication through visual storytelling. As a result, visitors to the Hunt Library use our video walls to learn about what is happening on their campus and around the world. In this talk, you will see and hear stories from our storytelling building, and we will discuss some of the challenges and opportunities involved in creating a permanent portfolio of content for public video walls that is crowdsourced from a campus community.