Goss Lab Gear Joins its Presses at WVU's Publishing Innovation Center

By: E&P Staff As part of its association with the West Virginia University Institute of Technology, in Montgomery, Goss International, Bolingbrook, Ill., donated laboratory equipment to the school's new Publishing Innovation Center. The gifts include apparatus to help with ink, dampening solution, paper and engineering analysis.

The Publishing Innovation Center was designed to attract, prepare and retrain individuals in publishing and newspaper careers in conjunction with the University's Department of Printing and the Newspaper Operations Advisory Committee.

Calling the Innovation Center "a valuable addition for our current and future newspaper and publishing students," Department of Printing Chair Jack Nuckols said in a statement: "It will also be used as a continuing education center for national industry training and research and a multi-use site for the rest of the campus and the surrounding community."

Featuring current technology, the center will showcase the mechanics of printing and publishing production. It has a meeting space with multimedia presentation capability, a 75-seat electronic auditorium, four laboratories (including a press-operation simulation lab, ink-testing and research lab, and newspaper web-press training lab), and additional classroom space.

Goss Community presses were donated to West Virginia University in 1989 and 2001. Goss International continues to support the presses and the university, holding regular training seminars and providing lecturers and curriculum support.

"Since our initial involvement with the university, we have developed a good working relationship and understanding of what WVU is striving to achieve," said Goss International Print Quality Director Ragy Isaac. "This new Innovation Center will undoubtedly become a center of excellence within the newspaper education sector in North America. We are committed to supporting educational and training programs across the United States and around the world."