The libraries at Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges acquire and support the creation of a rich and growing ecosystem of digitized and born-digital content. This content embodies the scholarly and creative production of our students and faculty. Archives and special collections, student capstone projects, theses, Div IIIs, and digital humanities projects are some of the most prominent facets of this digital ecosystem: unique and valuable resources awaiting use and reuse in the dynamic teaching and learning environment of the 21st century. Based on a common need for a robust infrastructure to manage this vital content, the three colleges are now working together to implement a collaborative digital library we refer to as the Three College Digital Library (3CDL) Project. This Project supports our shared objectives to build effective and aligned practices in digital stewardship, provide improved access to resources that support our institutional missions of teaching excellence, and create a platform for cross-collection access.

Between fall 2015 through to spring 2016, the colleges partnered with Common Media, a local web services and consulting firm, on a discovery and planning process. The resulting project plan included a scope and survey of our digital assets and current collections, an assessment of our related metadata (including a survey of our practices and standards for each collection), and surveys of our respective technical infrastructure, workflows, and integration points for related applications (such as collection management or legacy repository systems). The plan also created detailed assessments of the level of effort required to provision, host, and enhance a repository system to accommodate this project. We are pleased to announce that an initial implementation of a shared Islandora repository platform, along with selected digital collections from each college, is set to launch in Spring 2017; subsequent enhancements and expanded content will follow. This shared repository will allow us to better pool our resources, align our practices, and reduce infrastructure complexity. The 3CDL members will also develop a governance plan and other operational documentation as we proceed. Our work continues to be supported by Common Media.

If you have questions or would like more information, please contact the team!