Five Colleges, Incorporated: Librarians' Council

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The Five College Librarians have traditionally been in the forefront of promoting collaboration in sharing resources among the schools. A decade or more before the consortium was established, for example, the circulation librarians founded HILC, an inter-library center that enabled Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Smith to acquire and share little-used serials and monographs. Although HILC has been largely disbanded with the advent of open library borrowing and the Five College automated library system, the Librarians have continued to meet over the years and, as the members of the Librarians' Council, have in recent years introduced a number of innovations that further sharing of resources for research and teaching.

Council Members:
Willis Bridegam, Interim 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:
Archives and Special Collections: Danielle Kovacs
Cataloging Committee:Michael Edwards
Circulation:Gail Scanlon
Digital Environment Development and Coordinating Committee (DEDCC): David Podboy
Collection Management: Dan Schnurr
Research, Instruction, and Outreach Committee (RIO):Barbara Polowy
Serials and Acquisitions Committee: D. Bonner
Electronic Resources Subcommittee: Unassigned
Aleph Advisory Group: Stephanie Schmitt
Aleph Systems Working Group: Stephanie Schmitt
OPAC Working Group: Stephanie Schmitt
Ad Hoc Depository Advisory: Kathy Leigh
Technical Services Consolidation Task Force: Susan Dayall

Recent Projects
Five College Archives Digital Access Project: With the support of a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the libraries are making the special collections in women's studies at several of the campuses more widely known and broadly accessible to users through a new online database.

Five College Depository: The Council is currently developing a common depository for specified serials in the collections of the Five Colleges. With a projected capacity of 340,000 volumes, the Five College depository will provide scholars with ease of access to complete runs of specified serials while also freeing shelf space for acquisitions. Housed in a portion of an underground facility owned by Amherst College, the shared facility will offers an on-site space where scholars may consult materials as well as copying services that can be requested through interlibrary loan.

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