NCSU Libraries Focus Online

Volume 23 number 3 - Spring 2003

LRCDA: New Digital Media Lab

By Keith Morgan, Digital Library Initiatives

For the past several years, the NCSU Libraries has supported a small scanning lab where faculty, students, and staff could scan photographs and other images, documents, and microfilm and microfiche files. Images could be edited in Adobe Photoshop and documents either converted to Adobe PDF files or processed with optical character recognition software.

With the opening of the newly expanded and renovated Digital Media Lab (DML) in the Learning and Research Center for the Digital Age, the Libraries will provide the NC State community with access to even more sophisticated digital services. The DML can support users with a wide range of needs and experience. Faculty, students, and staff will discover an extensive range of options for integrating digital materials to enrich teaching, learning, and research. Orientation and training for the novice and consultation for the expert will be available. The Learning Technology Service (LTS), through its on-site Faculty Development Services group, will expand its ongoing support to faculty for online course creation and delivery by using the DML facilities. Digital Library Initiatives and other library staff will also be available for DML consultation, and new workshops and instructional materials, in addition to those currently offered in the nearby Information Technologies Teaching Center, will be offered to help faculty, students, and staff with all aspects of digital media.

The new DML comprises more than 1,000 square feet and makes available to the campus community twenty new Macintosh and Dell computers. Peripheral hardware attached to these workstations includes flatbed image scanners, slide and negative film scanners, fast document scanners, and a microform scanner. An expanded software suite to assist in the creation and development of digital objects for teaching and learning is accessible on some of the workstations. This software mix includes Adobe Photoshop 7.0, Adobe Acrobat 5.0, Omni Page Pro 12 OCR, Macromedia Studio MX, Easy CD, Toast, Helix Producer, and much more. The DML also has a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) workstation for public use. A color laser printer, black-and-white laser printer, and a large-format printer are available for use on a fee basis.

Digital Video and Audio Workstations

The DML also provides access to digital video (DV) and digital audio workstations. These two computers are located in a separate room within the DML. This room is soundproof, and lighting can be controlled to create a studio setting where objects might be photographed or an interview conducted. Software on the DV station features Final Cut Pro, a nonlinear digital video-editing solution, and the Adobe Digital Video Collection, which includes Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects, and Illustrator. The DV station will accept input from digital camcorders, which can be edited and then saved to CD-R or DVD. Analog capture of clips from traditional VHS tape is also supported.

The audio-editing workstation permits the conversion of analog audiocassette files to various digital formats. Captured audio files can then be edited and converted to new digital formats such as QuickTime, RealAudio, or MP3.

More information about the Digital Media Lab, including its hours of operation, is available on its Web site at http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/ads/dml/.

The digital video workstation in the Digital Media Lab has the capability to import and edit both analog and digital video. Dual monitors allow editing and final sequences to be viewed simultaneously. To the left of the larger monitor is a digital camcorder, analog VCR, and a flatbed scanner.