Five Colleges, Incorporated: Librarians' Council

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The Five College Librarians Council (FCLC) focuses on collaborative efforts to improve access to scholarly resources for the Five College community. The group jointly manages the Five College library budget and shares information and innovative ideas for library services. The FCLC oversees the management of the Five College automated library system and the consortial direct borrowing arrangement. In conjunction with the Executive Director of Five Colleges, Inc., it pursues grant funding opportunities for library initiatives and maintains liaison with the Directors, Deans and Principal Business Officers of the Five Colleges. The FCLC coordinates the work of Five College library committees and task forces and encourages professional development opportunities for library staff.

Council Members

Bryn Geffert, Librarian of the College, Amherst College
Susan Dayall, Acting Director of Library, Hampshire College
Charlotte Slocum Patriquin, Chief Information Officer and Executive Director, LITS, Mount Holyoke College
Christopher Loring, Director of Libraries, Smith College
Jay Schafer, Director of Libraries, UMass Amherst
Neal B. Abraham, Executive Director, Five Colleges, Incorporated

Five College Library Committees

The Librarians Council encourages innovation and collaboration by library staff in the Five Colleges. To this end, a number of standing committees and task forces are constituted. The Five College Library Committees Web page contains links to each committee's and task force's site as well as information about their charges and membership.

Recent Projects

Depository Conference. On July 21, 2011, the Librarians Council hosted a conference for New England and other regional library directors to discuss the need for a Northeaast Regional Depository (NERD), and the possibility that the Five College Library Depository might be expanded to fill that need. View the summary of the meeting (PDF file) and a presentation by Lizanne Payne, invited speaker at the conference (.pptx file).

Collaboration on E-Resources. Currently the FCLC is exploring the effective management of e-resources within the consortium, and has assigned a task force to evaluate a Discovery Service for the Five College libraries. A grant from the Davis Educational Foundation funded an investigation and two reports (Phase 1 and Phase 2) on these issues from R2 Consulting, LLC, including a number of other recommendations which are now under consideration.

Library Depository. In 1951 the Librarians founded the Hampshire Inter-Library Center (HILC), one of the oldest library consortia in the country, to acquire and maintain a specialized, shared collection of journals and reference material. This project continues in the form of the Five College Library Depository today. Housing single, deduplicated print copies of scholarly journal backfiles (many now available full-text online) and little-used books, the Depository collection allows the libraries to maintain shared access for our patrons while freeing up library space at each institution for more current uses. A possible expansion of Depository storage space is currently being explored.

Archives Projects. Two projects have increased access to the extensive and unique archives, manuscripts and special collections in the Five Colleges, both with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Five College Archives Digital Access Project began digitizing collections relating to women's history and education, while the Five College Finding Aids Project created a searchable database of finding aids for archives and manuscript collections. A Digital Preservation study is currently underway.

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