Digital Scholarship Centre Will Revolutionize Research

An emerging form of scholarship is getting a running start at McMaster, with strong support from a forward-looking couple who had a special understanding of the power of learning. With an official opening celebration Friday, the Lewis & Ruth Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship formally begins its work, helping graduate students and faculty members process huge amounts of data to reveal new information that would not have been possible to find even a few short years ago.

The centre, located in a renovated space in the first floor of Mills Memorial Library, is home to information specialists who can guide researchers through the challenges of searching vast stores of data using technology that can instantly scour and compare information from digitized maps and books, electronic databases and other sources. The facility was made possible by a $2.5 million gift from the Lewis & Ruth Sherman Foundation – the largest private donation in the library’s history...