Everyone knows the ITS Center has tons of computers for student use. Current undergraduates will only remember the ITS Center as the home of Mac and PC computer labs. However, something must have occupied all that space before computers were commonplace.
“The first use of what is now the ITS Center was as the Reserve Reading Room,” Dean of Libraries Ron Dow said. “There was a desk where students could retrieve books and articles placed on reserve by their faculty, just as happens today at the circulation desk.”
The ITS Center was not part of the original building. As it turns out, an addition was built on Rush Rhees Library in the early 1970s, according to Dow. As computers became more common and were housed in that facility, the name was changed from the Reserve Reading Room to incorporate the center’s changing function.
“As computers became more available the room’s name was changed to CARL, Computer and Reserve Library,” Dow said.
Eventually, more computers were added to the facility and the reserve materials that were originally kept there were eventually relocated. As the use of that part of Rush Rhees Library changed, so continued the evolution of the building’s name.
“In the 1990s the reserve collection moved to the circulation desk of Rush Rhees and the room was renamed CLARC, Computer Library and Resource Center,” Dow said. “It was still named library because a collection of computer books and manuals were available to support the use of the software.”
It wasn’t until last year that CLARC was renamed the Information Technology Services, or ITS, Center. So, many upperclassmen still refer to the ITS Center as CLARC out of habit.
