Michelle Smith Collaboratory for Visual Culture
Facility Location
4213 Art/Sociology Building
University of Maryland
College Park 20742
Brief Mission
A center for visualization and collaboration, the Collaboratory is distinguished by a large, curved projection wall in an intimate, inviting space. The Collaboratory was intended from the start to be a dynamic arena in which scholarly collaboration and interdisciplinarity unfolded in tandem with the Department of Art History and Archaeology’s strategic goal to be a leader in the field of visual studies, broadly defined. A flexible, well-equipped, and expertly staffed facility—one that can ably function as a classroom, conference center, meeting room, and laboratory—the Collaboratory constantly exercises and refines its potential as a center for creative and pioneering innovation.
The Collaboratory allows both faculty and students to discover and implement resources in the digital humanities that, in turn, foster new scholarship and new knowledge. The Collaboratory has become an important resource for faculty and students in art history as well as in other disciplines throughout the College of Arts and Humanities and the university.
Hours of Operation
8:30 AM to 4:30 PM, Monday through Friday
Services and Technologies Offered
The Collaboratory has a large visualization space that sets it apart from most labs/resources at the University of Maryland. A large, slightly-curved projection wall (22' x 7 1/2') anchors one end of an intimate, inviting and flexible space that can seat up to 35 comfortably, 40-45 less so. This space has been used for classes, lectures, small conferences, receptions, and as a technology laboratory wherein students/researchers might test drive new equipment or ideas.
Project consultation and guidance for an array of research and teaching needs is a strength of personnel within the Collaboratory, with particular expertise in: image manipulation (Photoshop); three-dimensional modelling (principally Sketchup); visual database manipulation (especially Google Earth, but a growing number of approaches for visualizing humanities-centered data sets); teaching tools (exploiting PowerPoint, Prezi, et al. for maximum results).
Equipment Available
The aforementioned projection space features a Dell Precision T7400, 16 GB RAM computer (OS XP, 7, 8) that, along with a NVIDIA Quadroplex 2200 D2 graphics array, feeds two Panasonic PT-DZ6710 projectors that result in a wall-dissolving continuous image. 5.1 surround sound speakers and a third projector cabled in to: Blu-Ray, VHS, auxiliary inputs (laptops, ipads et al) complete the technical features of this space.
A back workroom features 4 Dell computers, two of which are attached to 11" x 17" flatbed scanners and one slide scanner. Some limited video editing equipment (VHS and DVD players to digital capture) is available.
Pricing
Pricing to be determined on the basis of specific project costs
Contact
Quint Gregory, Associate Director
4213A Art/Sociology Building
Contact Email: quint@umd.edu
Contact Phone: 301-405-3183