The Five College Guide to Archival History Sources in the Pioneer Valley is a collaborative production, benefiting by the work of historians and archivists at the five colleges and other participating archives, as well as staff at Five Colleges, Incorporated.
The Guide is also very much a work-in-progress. We expect future iterations to become even more useful than this first attempt, as we include additional archives outside the five colleges, and as new finding aids are developed, including, we hope, aids that will permit integrated searches of resources available in special collections at the five colleges.
The Guide was first conceived by chairs of history departments at the five colleges, who were seeking ways to encourage undergraduates at the institutions to make fuller use of the rich resources available in the archives and special collections of the five colleges and other local archives. A Five College committee of historians and archivists, led by David Glassberg (Professor of History, University of Massachusetts Amherst) and Daria D'Arienzo (Archivist of the College, Amherst College), developed guidelines for its production in spring 1997, in close consultation with directors of other local archives. With the financial support of the history department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Five Colleges, Incorporated, the work was importantly advanced by two graduate students at the University. Peter Weis created the beginnings of a web-based inventory and description of some of the archival collections. His work was interrupted, first by a new baby, then a career move that took him out of the area. But in the course of 1998-1999, the guide was much expanded and refined by professional archivists at the five colleges. Another graduate student at the University, Beth Duryea, wrote the Guide's very useful introduction, which offers directions on using the guide, as well as insightful-even inspirational-suggestions on how to go about using local archives to write history.
The Guide has achieved its present form with the help of staff at Five Colleges, Incorporated, including Tom Warger, Karin Moyano Camihort, and Suzan Young.
We at Five Colleges, Incorporated are grateful to everyone who has made this guide possible, particularly the historians who thought of it and urged its creation, and their constant partners in history, the archivists, who, as all historians know, are the true Guides.
Nate Therien
Assistant Five College Coordinator for Academic Affairs
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