Dear Code4Lib Community Members,

A grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has enabled the North Carolina
State University Libraries to offer several block grants to support work on
visualizing digital scholarship in libraries and other learning spaces; see
below for the Call For Proposals.

If you work in this area please consider submitting an application. Also,
if you know of someone whose work would be a good match for the project and
who could benefit from participating please feel free to share this CFP.

Please note that successful participants will be invited to join us in
Raleigh for an initial workshop. If you attended Code4Lib 2014 and would
like to come back to Raleigh, here is your opportunity!

Sincerely,
Markus Wust
Digital Research and Scholarship Librarian
North Carolina State University Libraries
Raleigh, NC, USA
ORCID: 0000-0001-5958-2058

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CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Grant: Visualizing Digital Scholarship in Libraries and Learning Spaces
Award amount: $40,000
Funder: Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Lead institution: North Carolina State University Libraries
Due date: 13 August 2017
Notification date: 15 September 2017
Website: https://immersivescholar.org
Contact: [log in to unmask]

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

NC State University, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, invites
proposals from institutions interested in participating in a new project
for Visualizing Digital Scholarship in Libraries and Learning Spaces. The
grant aims to 1) build a community of practice of scholars and librarians
who work in large-scale multimedia to help visually immersive scholarly
work enter the research lifecycle; and 2) overcome technical and resource
barriers that limit the number of scholars and libraries who may produce
digital scholarship for visualization environments and the impact of
generated knowledge.

Libraries and museums have made significant strides in pioneering the use
of large-scale visualization technologies for research and learning.
However, the utilization, scale, and impact of visualization environments
and the scholarship created within them have not reached their fullest
potential. A logical next step in the provision of technology-rich, visual
academic spaces is to develop best practices and collaborative frameworks
that can benefit individual institutions by building economies of scale
among collaborators.

The project contains four major elements:

   1. An initial meeting and priority setting workshop that brings together
   librarians, scholars, and technologists working in large-scale, library and
   museum-based visualization environments.
   2. Scholars-in-residence at NC State over a multi-year period who pursue
   open source creative projects, working in collaboration with our librarians
   and faculty, with the potential to address the articulated limitations.
   3. Funding for modest, competitive block grants to other institutions
   working on similar challenges for creating, disseminating, validating, and
   preserving digital scholarship created in and for large-scale visual
   environments.
   4. A culminating symposium that brings together representatives from the
   scholars-in-residence and block grant recipient institutions to share and
   assess results, organize ways of preserving and disseminating digital
   products produced, and build on the methods, templates, and tools developed
   for future projects.

WORK SUMMARY

This call solicits proposals for block grants from library or museum
systems that have visualization installations. Block grant recipients can
utilize funds for ideas ranging from creating open source scholarly content
for visualization environments to developing tools and templates to enhance
sharing of visualization work. An advisory panel will select four
institutions to receive awards of up to $40,000. Block grant recipients
will also participate in the initial priority setting workshop and the
culminating symposium. Participating in a block grant proposal does not
disqualify an individual from later applying for one of the grant-supported
scholar-in-residence appointments.

Applicants will provide a statement of work that describes the
contributions that their organization will make toward the goals of the
grant. Applicants will also provide a budget and budget justification.
Activities that can be funded through block grants include, but are not
limited to:

   - Commissioning work by a visualization expert
   - Hosting a visiting scholar, artist, or technologist residency
   - Software development or adaptation
   - Development of templates and methodologies for sharing and scaling
   content utilizing open source software
   - Student or staff labor for content or software development or
   adaptation
   - Curricula and reusable learning objects for digital scholarship and
   visualization courses
   - Travel (if necessary) to the initial project meeting and culminating
   workshop
   - User research on universal design for visualization spaces

Funding for operational expenditures, such as equipment, is not allowed for
any grant participant.

APPLICATION

Send an application to [log in to unmask] by the end of the day on
13 August 2017 that includes the following:

   - Statement of work (no more than 1000 words) of the project idea your
   organization plans to develop, its relationship to the overall goals of the
   grant, and the challenges to be addressed.
   - List the names and contact information for each of the participants in
   the funded project, including a brief description of their current role,
   background, expertise, interests, and what they can contribute.
   - Project timeline.
   - Budget table with projected expenditures.
   - Budget narrative detailing the proposed expenditures


SELECTION AND NOTIFICATION PROCESS

An advisory panel made up of scholars, librarians, and technologists with
experience and expertise in large-scale visualization and/or visual
scholarship will review and rank proposals. The project leaders are
especially keen to receive proposals that develop best practices and
collaborative frameworks that can benefit individual institutions by
building a community of practice and economies of scale among
collaborators.

Awardees will be selected based on:

   - the ability of their proposal to successfully address one or both of
   the identified problems;
   - the creativity of the proposed activities;
   - relevant demonstrated experience partnering with scholars or students
   on visualization projects;
   - whether the proposal is extensible;
   - feasibility of the work within the proposed time-frame and budget;
   - whether the project work improves or expands access to large-scale
   visual environments for users; and
   - the participant’s ability to expand content development and sharing
   among the network of institutions with large-scale visual environments.
   - Awardees will be required to send a representative to an initial
   meeting of the project cohort in Fall 2017.

Awardees will be notified by 15 September 2017.