Intelligent Infrastructure, Ubiquitous Mobility, and Smart Libraries – Innovate for the Future

Abstract

This paper presents an empirical research on the strategic development of a large-scale transdisciplinary area, named Intelligent Infrastructure for Human-Centered Communities or IIHCC, in the institutional context of Virginia Tech. In such an innovative space, this study investigated the change dynamics, system thinking, and adaptive design strategies associated with the IIHCC evolution and libraries’ innovation. It employed a mixed-methods approach combining semi-structured interviews, ethnographic participant observation, and document analysis. The results present an emerging horizon of intelligent infrastructure and ubiquitous mobility and the evolving knowledge space and shifting data sphere in this cyber-physical-human integrated environment. Within such developments, this study discusses the developing scenarios of “smart” libraries as innovative testbeds for data exploration, community knowledge base, and intelligent information interface. It further projects an intelligent, learning, and adaptive library system, featuring exemplary data science platform and dynamic data management mechanism, smart design and innovation space, as well as collective intelligence and creative partnership. During this extraordinary time of horizon change, this timely work informs academic library transformation and its architectural innovation in the age of “smartness.”