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New digital scholarship center to open in 2025

Their love story began at ������������, where they met as students. A new chapter is unfolding in the Libraries.

Sandra R. Alpern ’70 and Richard L. Alpern ’69, longtime supporters of ������������, made a commitment to enhance the digital scholarship center that’s being created in Glenn G. Bartle Library. As donors for over four decades and volunteers, they said they believe strongly in the importance of giving back to ������������ for the excellent education they had as students.

The couple’s generosity will supply broad, flexible support to advance the center — dedicated space where digital tools and techniques can be applied to extend traditional research and learning methods. The center will be named to emphasize its service to a broad campus community spanning humanities, social sciences and STEM.

“The ability to work on digital projects is a key area that every student should know and impacts all fields,” Richard Alpern said. “Our gift to the digital scholarship center is intended to contribute to positioning the Libraries as a nexus of expertise in teaching, learning and research through collaboration on digital projects, workshops and small group lectures.”

“Libraries have always been very important to me,” Sandra Alpern said. “Providing students with access to a wide range of digital resources, available 24/7, seemed a natural project for us to support.”

Development of the center is part of a renovation project to redesign the third floor of the library and transform the space into an innovative and inviting home for research collaboration, showcasing digital projects, community building and continued learning. The third floor and the center are expected to be ready and open in 2025. A pilot Digital Scholarship Center is in the Science Library.

“In today’s rapidly changing world regarding technology and our interaction with it, this space will help students prepare for the job landscape of tomorrow,” said David Schuster, senior director for library technology and digital strategies. “This gift will allow us to engage with undergraduate and graduate students to explore technology for scholarship and research in new ways and immerse them into the various growing digital scholarship communities on campus.”