Innovation Studio opens in D.H. Hill, NC State University Libraries offers new virtual learning space

With D.H. Hill Jr. Library’s renovation wrapping up this semester, NC State students now have new resources available to them. One of the additions in NC State University Libraries is the Innovation Studio, which has already offered virtual workshops this semester.

David Woodbury, department head of learning spaces and services at university libraries, talked about how the Innovation Studio builds on previous work from other learning spaces, such as the D.H. Hill Jr. Library Makerspace and James B. Hunt Jr. Library Teaching and Visualization Lab.

“It’s complimentary to those spaces,” Woodbury said. “Where we saw an opportunity, in particularly [sic] out of programs coming out of the Makerspace, are the need for hands-on workshops that showcase the process of idea generation and inspiration for how we kind of come up with innovation on campus and how we might think about the future.”

According to Woodbury, the new Innovation Studio will provide a space and services for students to promote innovation across disciplines. Students, faculty and organizations will be able to showcase their work as well as participate in and host various workshops to pioneer innovative thinking and problem-solving in the Innovation Studio.

“We’re really positioned to bring people together around new ways of thinking and supporting people, like undergraduate research,” Woodbury said. “Programs like that, that are multidisciplinary and could use different kinds of help at different points in the process.”

With COVID-19 impacting the capacity of various spaces on campus, the Innovation Studio has had to make a few adaptations during its opening this semester. Tori Culler, a university library fellow, said the new learning space is hosting virtual workshops and making innovative design choices to remain active.

“I think the cool thing about [the Innovation Studio] that we didn’t initially plan for was that, when you interact with the exhibit, you don’t even have to touch it,” Culler said. “You interact with everything through hover, so kind of fortunate for us that, for the natural form of the exhibit, we don’t have to worry about touching spreading anything.”

According to Culler, this semester has been a challenge for the Innovation Studio due to the COVID-19 pandemic affecting reopening. While the physical space still isn’t available to students, the Innovation Studio has been hosting events digitally, such as the Innovation 101 and the Future’s Thinking 101 workshops.

“The first couple workshops we had done when we were piloting things in the year leading up to the space, we would get like 1,250 [students] to a workshop,” Culler said. “Which is pretty typical for a library workshop, depending on what type of thing it is, and that’s held true for the workshops we’ve had so far.”

Similarly, the Innovation Studio plans to showcase various events in the future. According to Culler, future events include an Innovation in the Time of Coronavirus exhibit, where the College of Textiles will premier face masks, and an exhibition for the Master of Art and Design final projects, where students can scroll through projects, artist biographies and quotations. According to Culler, the Innovation Studio also plans on showcasing previous exhibits, such as Existence is Resistance, an Afrofuturist exhibit, alongside other class projects.

According to Culler and Woodbury, students looking to host future exhibitions can contact the Innovation Studio through its website. Workshops will continue to be accessible online for students to attend.

“What’s exciting is that we hope to link to lots of things already going on in the library already,” Woodbury said. “We’re gonna feature things from the Makerspace, feature things happening in the Data Experience Lab or even projects happening in the undergraduate office of research, which is right next to the Innovation Studio.”

For more information, visit the Innovation Studio website.