Trying to find a document from the Internet trustworthy enough for a student research paper isn’t always as easy as it sounds.

Sometimes, even when students use research databases from the Library’s Web site, they must sift through hundreds of unrelated documents to find one good one to use.

But a solution is in the works for Kent State and other universities.

The Digital Resource Commons “will enable all OhioLINK members and other Ohio institutions to rapidly publish and comprehensively access the wealth of research, historic and creative materials produced by Ohio’s scholarly communities,” said Peter Murray, assistant director of library systems and multimedia databases at OhioLINK.

Murray said they hope to have the Digital Resource Commons Institutional Repository up and running by fall 2006 and to be able to stream media from the repository in December 2006.

OhioLINK offers the following six main electronic services: a library catalog, research databases, a multi-publisher electronic journal center, a digital media center, a growing collection of e-books, and an electronic theses and dissertations center.

The new community will give professors at Kent State the ability “to store, access and preserve all types and formats of digital materials, including audio, video, graphic images and text,” Murray said. “It will also include capabilities for hosting and supporting institutional repositories, peer reviewed e-journals, electronic theses and dissertations and learning objects.”

Professors said they are looking forward to the day when they can put entire lectures online.

“I want the ability to put all my lectures online,” psychology professor Tom Dowd said. “No student would ever have to come to class if I put the video and audio of my lectures online for students to watch.”

Contact libraries and information reporter Sara Huebner at [email protected]