CHAPEL HILL, NC, March 27, 2008 – The public is invited to feed their minds—as well as their stomachs—at the Renaissance Computing Institute’s (RENCI) Renaissance Bistro. RENCI’s informal informational bistro session will focus on the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation Institute Visual History Archive (VHA) and how to use it for personal and professional research.

The VHA is a video archive of testimonials from Holocaust survivors and witnesses offered through the USC Shoah Foundation Institute. The archive includes nearly 52,000 video testimonies of Holocaust survivors, witnesses and liberators collected in 32 languages and from 56 countries.

The Renaissance Bistro will be held from 12 p.m. – 1 p.m. Thursday, May 1, in the OIT-Telecommunications Building on the West Campus of Duke University. The event is free and open to the public. Lunch is included.

Faculty, staff and students at UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke University, and North Carolina State University (NCSU) have access to the VHA through RENCI. It is also available to the general public from any of the three campus networks. Public listening/viewing areas are available at Davis Library at UNC, D.H. Hill Library at NC State, and Perkins library at Duke. For directions to the bistro, see http://www.renci.org/focusareas/eduoutreach/bistro.php. RSVP by April 24 to
jshelton at renci.org.

RENCI…Catalyst for Innovation
The Renaissance Computing Institute brings together teams of talented researchers, engineers, technologists and leaders in government, business, the arts and humanities to attack major research questions and community issues in ways that accelerate discovery and drive innovation. RENCI has nationally significant expertise and capabilities in high performance computing, visualization, collaborative tools, networking, device prototyping, and data systems as well as engagement sites across the state. Founded in 2004 as a major collaborative venture of Duke University, North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the state of North Carolina, RENCI is a statewide virtual organization. For more, see www.renci.org.