INTRODUCTION
The Librarius Study Center ("LSC") is a new field-course facility located at the Jatun Sacha Biological Reserve in the lowland rainforest of Amazonian Ecuador. The LSC was specifically designed to comfortably support long-term university-level course groups (up to 25 persons, with classroom, lab, and library). The name "Librarius" is taken from the name given to a new species of frog - Eleutherodactylus librarius - first collected at Jatun Sacha in 1986, and underscores the mission of the Librarius Study Center as a place devoted to the study and conservation of the Amazon Rainforest. Following a period of construction and development spanning nearly three years (1998-2001), the LSC now takes it place as the newest addition to the already outstanding facilities of the Jatun Sacha Biological Reserve.
OUR MISSION - CONSERVATION, RESEARCH, AND EDUCATION
The LSC strives to promote conservation through education, with ample opportunities for research along the way! Every person who visits the Amazon rainforest, with the purpose of learning and understanding, later becomes a teacher (at some level) who can impart knowledge - and hopefully admiration and concern - about rainforest conservation. For some it may amount to no more than vacation memories, while for others it may lead to a lifetime of study and teaching.
The extraordinary biodiversity, size, and accessibility of the Jatun Sacha forest, combined with the facilities of the Librarius Center and the Jatun Sacha Station, together allow all participants to comfortably benefit from the experience to their full potential.
Depending on the specific interests of the faculty, it is also possible to incorporate research projects into courses by having students assist with labor and data-gathering. Much remains to be learned about this most diverse and endangered rainforest (even at the level of species inventory for some taxa), and efforts to study unknowns are especially welcomed.