About SCRC

Special Collections Reseach Center (SCRC)

Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) is the unit within the University Libraries charged with acquiring, documenting, preserving, and providing access to primary research collections and documents. SCRC also manages the non-current and archival records of George Mason University, is responsible for the preservation and access to the University’s theses and dissertations, and undertakes, through its Oral History program, the creation of audiovisual documentary resources. SCRC services, collections and programs support the teaching and research activities of George Mason University and also serve the community at large.

Documents in SCRC are authentic, original, often unique, valuable, fragile, or otherwise exceptional. Some have the capacity to evoke the past, and embody the transmittal of knowledge over time. Others simply function as the only record of an individual or corporate life. SCRC preserves the materiality of information as it has been recorded and distributed in its original format. SCRC also adds value to its holdings through selective digitization and through interpretive exhibits, instruction, and programming.

SCRC began operation originally as the repository for the records of the Federal Theatre Project placed on loan to George Mason University by the Library of Congress in 1974. An outgrowth of George Mason University’s Institute for the Federal Theatre Project, the department began to collect rare books and University Archives in 1978 and was named Special Collections & Archives in 1984. It was renamed the Special Collections Research Center in 2016.

SCRC is located on the Fairfax Campus of George Mason University in the Fenwick Library in Suite 2400.

To start learning more about SCRC and our holdings, please visit

scrc.gmu.edu