PACSCL -- About PACSCL

PLEASE NOTE: This is an archived site. For PACSCL's current site, visit http://www.pacscl.org/

Daniel Giraud Elliott. A Monograph of the Felidae or Family of Cats [London, 1883]. Academy of Natural Sciences

About PACSCL

The PACSCL Mission/Vision Statement
Adopted by the Board of Directors December 2003

Mission

The Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL) encourages diverse audiences to explore and engage with member libraries' uniquely rich holdings and, through collaboration, strengthens these collections and the institutions that preserve them.

Vision

PACSCL is the most extensive and diverse collaboration among a region's libraries and archives in the United States. Its collections, in their depth and variety, comprise an internationally important body of unique and rare materials for students, scholars, and life-long learners of every background.

As stewards of this documentary heritage, PACSCL members seek to share their resources with the broadest possible array of audiences. Our vision for PACSCL embraces the following:

The Philadelphia area generally and PACSCL in particular will be known internationally as one of the nation's preeminent centers of rare books, manuscripts, photographs, prints, architectural drawings, and works of art on paper.
Every potential user worldwide will have access to records for all materials in the collections of PACSCL libraries via web-mounted catalog records or encoded finding aids. These records will include or link to digital images of books, manuscripts, graphics, or other objects where appropriate, giving users intensive, selective access to collections from outside.
The Greater Philadelphia educational establishment will rely on PACSCL for resources and programs for curricula and curricular supports for students from early childhood through postdoctoral education and for life-long learners.
Tourists and the tourism professionals who serve them will look to PACSCL and its members to showcase and illuminate the historical and cultural riches of the Philadelphia area. PACSCL will become the partner of choice for the information to shape the creation of specialty tours and information campaigns to increase cultural travel to the Philadelphia area.
PACSCL will gain growing recognition for providing a national model for regional collaboration among special collections libraries, including utilization of technology in program delivery.
PACSCL members' staffs at all levels will build and share in a rich community of common interests and involvements, will have collective access to the highest level of professional training in their disciplines, and also will become inspired and informed about the collections, resources, and available expertise at member libraries.

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