The University of Missouri-Rolla plans to open up its research vault with the development of Scholars’ Mine, a free digital collection of the university’s scholarly work.
Scholars’ Mine will contain thousands of academic articles, theses and dissertations, white papers, technical reports, patents and other research work of UMR faculty and students. The information can be navigated by author, paper title, departments and labs and date issued, or by using keyword or Boolean operators.
“Scholars’ Mine will significantly improve our ability to market and provide access to the work of UMR researchers on a global scale,” says Brian Buege, interim chief information officer at UMR. “It is a fundamental step towards our organizational goal of providing relevant, targeted access to information rather than merely archiving data and publications in large warehouses or repositories.”
The online repository, located at http://scholarsmine.mst.edu , was developed by UMR’s Curtis Laws Wilson Library, the office of electronic marketing communications and the information technology department as a centralized tool to manage, preserve and distribute information about current and past research.
“In scholarly circles, the dissemination of information to the right people is everything,” says John Seguin, electronic resources librarian. “By combining all of the research into one central location, and attributing metadata to each item, we help ensure a very cohesive and consistent presentation of research done at UMR.”
The repository began accepting theses and dissertations for inclusion today (April 11, 2007). A permanent office in the UMR Library will maintain the site and work with faculty to organize their collections.
“Information of all kinds is the lifeblood of a research university, and Scholars’ Mine continues to build on the library tradition of providing quality information resources and services,” says Andy Stewart, library director. “The ‘Mine’ represents a new information arena for the entire campus. We look forward to working hand-in-hand with the campus community to classify, organize, and disseminate the research output of students and faculty from all academic disciplines.”
For more information about Scholars’ Mine, email scholarsmine@mst.edu.