Communication centers are spaces of mediation. They involve tutors and clients negotiating sessions. The work these clients do may be spoken, written, or otherwise shown. That is where tools come in, like the hard copies of written and visual artifacts, the laptops or tablets that display them digitally, the projectors that allow for presentation practice, the printers that generate physical copies, and so on. For a communication center, tools allow tutors and clients to display media, work on media, and think about media in innovative ways. A director must successfully make an argument for a tool, even if it is hard to know what uses that tool will find before it has been tested or bought. For these reasons, communication center administrators need information that allows them to provisionally understand how these tools are used. This article approaches the question of utility in two respects. First, a survey and observational data of Georgia Tech's Communication Center highlights three broad categories of tool: core tools embraced by the core praxis of a center; modal tools specific to supporting particular modes of communication; and peripheral tools tied to particular pedagogical methods. All three of these tools can have a place in productive communication center practices. Second, while there is no "best tool," the pedagogical applications of each tool are plotted out and paired with some basic questions to help guide the difficult decision of what tools or technologies a center might invest in. Summarily, while administrators may not know all the potential uses of a tool before it is acquired, there are pedagogical applications that can serve as baseline arguments for buying them.