Information Center for Ropeway Studies, Arthur Lakes Library, Colorado School of Mines, new partnerships, The

Abstract

The Information Center for Ropeway Studies, established in 1991 at the Arthur Lakes Library on the Colorado School of Mines campus, continues in its original role of collection development in the theory, design, and operation of ropeway systems. The Library is also responsible for the development of the ROPEWAY Database, a bibliographic database for this specific subject area. The ROPEWAY Database is available on the Web and serves a population of remote users as well as Arthur Lakes Library clients. Financial assistance from OITAF-NACS has supported both the collection and the database. In 1996, a Five-Year Strategic Plan was implemented to guide development of the Center in four directions: marketing, collection development, improvements to access, and improvements to services. In the past three years, new partnerships have formed that have expanded the scope of the database and the Center, providing more comprehensive coverage of the subject and increasing the breadth of coverage in the database. These partnerships include: the addition of ropeway-related materials from Jenlynn International, Inc., a division of Kimley Horn, into the ROPEWAY Database, and cooperative database-building efforts with the International Rope Data Base (IRDB), currently supported by OIPEEC (International Organization for the Study of the Endurance of Wire Rope).