Building a Scholarly Communications Center: Modeling the Rutgers Experience

Citation

Hodes, J. (2000), "Building a Scholarly Communications Center: Modeling the Rutgers Experience", Online Information Review, Vol. 24 No. 5, pp. 401-411. https://doi.org/10.1108/oir.2000.24.5.401.2

The Scholarly Communications Center (SCC) is housed on the fourth floor of the Alexander Library at Rutgers University, New Jersey. Established in 1994, a management team of five librarians spent three years successfully planning the design and construction details of the Center, selecting equipment, developing operational policies and guidelines, recruiting staff, developing lead projects, promoting public relations and exploring and analysing the Center’s initial uses. The result is a SCC whose current purpose is to provide a work and demonstration space where electronic resources can be taught in hands‐on classrooms (the Information Handling Laboratory), demonstrated in a modern auditorium (The Teleconference Lecture Hall), or manipulated in a data centre containing over 70 networked workstations, loaded with software for accessing information and creating new information products (the Humanities and Social Sciences Data Center).

This publication documents the journey from conception to implementation. Chapters include: planning and implementation; budget and fund‐raising; teleconference lecture hall; the information handling laboratory; Humanities and Social Sciences Data Center; technology checklist and specifications; connecting to the academic community and beyond; implications of the SCC for research and instruction. There is a good index but no bibliography, just notes at the end of each chapter. For more recent information on the SCC and how it is attempting the integration of electronic resources into the mainstream of intellectual activity at Rutgers University, see the SCC Web site at scc01.rutgers.edu/scchome.

This monograph presents a readable account of the challenges encountered in setting up the SCC. Centres such as these are important, for networked access to information and computer‐based methods for research and teaching are now becoming central to all scholarly endeavours. Libraries need models to demonstrate to scholars the most effective means of using these new tools. In discussing the Rutgers experience the authors use the SCC planning process as a springboard to identify issues and potential problems as well as solutions, focusing on both success factors and potential obstructions. For an Australian example, see The Scholarly Electronic Text and Image Service (SETIS) at Sydney University setis.library.usyd.edu.au

This is a timely publication on an important initiative, one designed to ensure that libraries can successfully navigate from the print to the digital age. Those academic libraries already travelling in this direction, or wishing to embark on the journey, will find it most useful.