Neilson Library | Branch Libraries | Rarebook Room | SSC & Archives | Nonprint
Classification | 5 College Consortium | Automation | E-Classroom | Kahn Institute

WILLIAM ALLAN NEILSON LIBRARY

From 1875 to 1909, Smith College relied primarily on the private Clarke Library and the public Forbes Library (dedicated in 1894). The first college reference library was formed with a $4,000 allocation in 1878 and housed in various rooms in College Hall; it was moved to Seelye Hall when that building opened in 1900.
The core of the present main building was erected in 1909, funded by a gift from Andrew Carnegie and matching gifts from alumnae and friends. It was enlarged in 1937 and, in 1946, named the William Allan Neilson Library in honor of the College's third president. In 1962, two wings were added and extensive interior rearrangements made. The last major expansion and renovation began in 1978 and was completed with the rededication of Neilson Library in November 1982 and of the converted Alumnae Gymnasium in May 1983.		William Allan Neilson Library

In the fall of 1987, the libraries acquired their millionth volume. This watershed was celebrated by the acquisition of the Epistole Devotissime of St. Catherine of Siena in an Aldine edition of 1500 to be designated officially as volume 1,000,000. The Smith College Libraries now hold over 1.4 million items including books, periodicals, microforms, maps, scores, recordings, manuscripts, archives, film and video, computer-readable materials, graphic arts, memorabilia and cuneiform tablets.

DEPARTMENTAL COLLECTIONS AND BRANCH LIBRARIES

Departmental collections started as early as 1876 for art and 1888 for the sciences. The Music Department began its collection in 1911 and hired the first music librarian in 1922. The Hillyer and Josten libraries were transferred administratively from their respective departments to the Libraries in 1968. The Music Library was moved to new quarters in the Mendenhall Performing Arts Center and named for Werner Josten (a professor in the Music Department) in 1968. The Hillyer Art Library, after a few years in Stoddard Hall during the construction of the Fine Arts Center, occupied its present facility in 1972. During the renovation of the Fine Arts Center from 2000 to 2002, art library collections were divided between temporary art library facilities in Bell Hall at the Clarke School for the Deaf and the Smith College Libraries storage facility at 126 West Street. Werner Josten Performing Arts Library Mendenhall Performing Arts Center

The science department libraries originally included Chemistry in Stoddard Hall, Physics in Lilly Hall, Geology in Seelye Hall, Botany, Zoology and Bacteriology in Burton Hall. Other collections, now merged with the Neilson or Science Library collections, were located in Scott Gymnasium (Physical Education) and the Plant House (Horticulture). In 1937, some thought was given to starting a psychology library in Pierce Hall, but the plan was never realized. The science libraries were consolidated and became part of the Smith College Libraries in 1965 when they were moved into the Science Library in Sabin-Reed Hall. In 1991, the Science Library moved to Bass Hall and was named the Anita O'K. and Robert R. Young Science Library.   The Anita O'K. and Robert R. Young Science Libary

The Hillyer Art Library was renovated during the reconstruction of the Brown Fine Arts Center, and reopened it's new facilities in August 2002.     Hillyer Art Library, Service Desk

MORTIMER RARE BOOK ROOM

Martin Antonetti and Karen Kukil in the Mortimer Rare Book Room

As a part of the 1962 addition to the Neilson Library, the paneled Rare Book Room was created with its own secure stacks. The collection of rare books had been started by its first curator, Marion Brown, sometime in the early 1940s with items culled from the general collection. In January 1994 the Board of Trustees voted to name it the Mortimer Rare Book Room, in honor of Ruth Mortimer Lancaster '53, curator and assistant librarian since 1975. Following her death on January 31, 1994, the room was dedicated in April of 1994 amidst an outpouring of special funds and gifts.

SMITH COLLEGE ARCHIVES AND THE SOPHIA SMITH COLLECTION

The College formally established the Smith College Archives in 1921 when, after years of unofficial collecting, Nina Browne, class of 1882, was appointed archivist of the College. The Sophia Smith Collection, one of the two principal repositories for primary sources in U.S. women's history, was founded in 1942 by the Friends of the Libraries. These collections were administratively separate from the College Library until 1984, when they became library departments. From the 1960's, they occupied space in Neilson Library, and in 1982 moved to the renovated and now-adjoining Alumnae Gymnasium.

NONPRINT RESOURCES

The Nonprint Resources Center was opened in 1984 in the lower level of the Alumnae Gym and its first Director appointed in 1987. In 1991, the former Electronics Department of the College was incorporated into the NPRC. In 1999 Media Services split from the Libraries and became an administrative unit of Information Technology Services. At that time, the Nonprint Resources Collection of videotapes, films and other media materials became a unit of the Public Services Division of the Libraries. In 2001, the nonprint materials were moved to Level 1, behind the circulation desk in Neilson Library.

CLARKE SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF

In addition to the above facilities, Smith College and the Clarke School for the Deaf jointly maintain on the Clarke campus, the Rogers Hall Professional Library which was renovated and enlarged in 1977. Holdings of this library are now integrated into the Smith College Libraries' online catalog and the staffs of the libraries cooperate to facilitate cataloging, acquisitions and other services.

CLASSIFICATION SYSTEMS

During the first seventy-two years of its existence, the Library used its own adaptation of the decimal classification to organize its collections. As these collections grew larger and more complex, the numbering became long and difficult to interpret. In July 1971 it was decided to abandon decimal classification and use the Library of Congress classification. The Rare Book Room decided to continue use of the decimal classification for that collection until 1996 when it adopted the Library of Congress classification system. A local system was devised for classifying Smith College theses by teaching departments, and government documents were classed by GPO and UN numbers.

FIVE COLLEGE CONSORTIUM

In 1951 Smith joined the University of Massachusetts, Amherst College and Mount Holyoke College to form the Hampshire Inter-Library Center (HILC). This consortium was the first instance of cooperation among the four schools (and one of the earliest library consortia in the United States). The Center was intended as a depository for less frequently used research materials, primarily serials and large sets, from the collections of the four libraries and jointly owned by all four. Hampshire College, which opened in 1970, joined HILC as its fifth member. HILC later came under the administrative umbrella of Five Colleges, Inc., and its collections were distributed among the member libraries. HILC still exists as a base for planning and implementation of cooperative undertakings by the five libraries and is administered by the directors of these libraries sitting as the Five College Librarians Council. A series of staff committees facilitates communication and staff development and makes recommendations regarding policy and procedure for common concerns in public and technical services.

AUTOMATION AND ELECTRONIC ACCESS

The Smith College Libraries' first automation efforts were in 1974 when the department joined the New England Library Information Network (NELINET). Participation in NELINET provided the Libraries access via interactive terminals to the international shared bibliographic data file of OCLC, Inc. New techniques for both cataloging and interlibrary loans were introduced. By 1981, all of the five-college libraries were using the OCLC facility, and in that year the five institutions signed a contract with OCLC to develop a local integrated library system with union catalog, acquisitions, serials control, cataloging and circulation components. In 1985, all five libraries began using the LS2000 system for cataloging. The Circulation department in the Neilson Library started using the system for loans in January 1988. The card catalogue in the Neilson Library was frozen (left in place but no longer maintained) in July, 1988, with the Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) terminals replacing it. The Young Science Library automated its circulation through LS2000 in 1990. Also that year, the Smith College Libraries purchased a stand-alone automated serials and acquisitions system from Innovative Interfaces, Inc.

Not only were there ongoing difficulties with the LS2000 system, but it was then sold to another company that announced it would not be sustained as a product. In 1992, the five-college libraries began intensive planning for a replacement system; administrators and computing staffs from each campus were also involved. In 1993, a contract was signed with Innovative Interfaces, Inc., and in early 1994 the Five College Online Library System was brought up with all campuses employing modules for circulation, public access, and cataloging. Serials and acquisitions were added to the system that spring and Smith folded in its stand-alone operation. This was the first library automated system for Smith and the five colleges that integrates all functions across campuses, and the first time that all Smith's branch libraries are automated for circulation, reserves and serials management.

In 1992, with funding from the Keck and Davis foundations, a LAN-based system of locally mounted CD-ROM databases was brought up at Smith in the Young and Neilson Libraries. The following year, Neilson was completely rewired for computer networking; at the time the new Innovative Interfaces system was launched in 1994, the Libraries also moved all administrative computing to a networked file-server configuration. Access to electronic mail, word processing, office software and library systems and databases was combined and extended. In the fall of 1994, the CD-ROM network was expanded, and a new menu interface introduced on public-access computers. Entitled the "Smith Libraries Gateway," the menu provides single-point access to the OPAC, the CD-ROM network, subscription database services and Internet information resources. The libraries and the Information Systems Department began active collaboration in designing menu interfaces and in training faculty and students in the use of the Internet.

ELECTRONIC CLASSROOM

The Smith College Libraries' Electronic Classroom, located on Level 1 North of the Neilson Library, opened in February, 2000. The room contains twenty student and one instructor computers, a printer, and overhead projector and can accommodate classes of up to forty students. The primary purpose of this classroom is to offer a place for the teaching of electronic and other library resources by libraries staff. When not in use for classes, the room may be used for other library and student research activities that require computers. For further information on scheduling and use of the Electronic Classroom, contact the library instruction coordinator.

KAHN INSTITUTE

In September 2000, The Louise B. and Edmund J. Kahn Liberal Arts Institute occupied permanent quarters on the third floor, south wing, of Neilson Library. Developed during the college's 1997 self study, the Kahn Institute provides a setting--outside the curriculum but creatively linked to it--in which faculty, together with students and visiting scholars, writers and performers, work together intensively on projects of broad scope.

Return to Top

Home | Research | Library Services | General Information | Smith Libraries & Collections | Need Help?