NCSU Libraries Focus Online
Volume 26 number 2 - Winter 2006
Elisabeth A. Wheeler Receives 2005 NCSU Libraries Faculty Award
By Bob Sotak, Collection Management
Elisabeth A. Wheeler, professor emerita in NC State’s Department
of Wood and Paper Science, is the recipient of the seventeenth
annual NCSU Libraries Faculty Award. This award is presented annually
to an NC State University faculty member in recognition of outstanding
contributions that support the Libraries’ mission and its
role within the university. The award was presented to Wheeler
at the Friends of the Library Fall Luncheon on October 24, 2005.
Wheeler is an authority in wood anatomy, but her research interests
also include wood evolution and the effects of climate change on
wood structure. Recognizing the scientific value of the anatomical
images of woody plants she had collected over the years and the
potential that digital technologies had for making these images
available to a worldwide audience via the Web, she collaborated
with a team of NCSU librarians and technical staff to submit a
grant application to the National Science Foundation in 2003. They
were awarded $279,455 for a project focused on wood identification
collection enhancement and Web access. This award allowed the creation
of the InsideWood database, which has more than 5,800 entries for
modern woods and 23,300 digital images. InsideWood provides online
access to images that were previously available only as rare hard
copies.
The InsideWood project team, led by Wheeler and library staff
members Kathy Brown and Shirley Rodgers, was awarded $243,039 in
2005 by the National Science Foundation to create a fossil wood
database and enhance the existing modern wood database. InsideWood
involves collaborators from the Micromorphology Group; Jodrell
Laboratory; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, U.K.; the National Herbarium
of the Netherlands; and CSIRO Forestry and Forest Products, Australia.
The database has an international audience that includes wood scientists,
botanists, archaeologists, paleontologists, and forensic scientists.
InsideWood is also a valuable resource for students and the general
public.
Wheeler has supported the Libraries on other projects as well. She
collaborated with library faculty and staff on Project 25, an effort
to develop twenty-five Web-based courses by fall 1997. She also donated
the rare book The American Woods, volumes I through XIV, by Romeyn
B. Hough, to the Special Collections Research Center. This book was
digitized under an NC ECHO grant and is now available via InsideWood
[http://insidewood.lib.ncsu.edu/search/].
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