Welcome! As a staff member at a PACSCL member library, you are encouraged to attend our general meetings and to participate in PACSCL programs.

What’s a PACSCL, you ask? PACSCL (short for the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries, and pronounced PACK-skəl)  is a consortium of forty rare book and manuscript libraries and archives in the Greater Philadelphia area. PACSCL member libraries collect, care for, and share with a worldwide audience collections that, in their depth and variety, comprise an internationally important body of unique materials for students, scholars and lifelong learners at any level.

PACSCL exists to strengthen the special collections community in the region. This often involves collaboration on projects that require significant commitment of resources and, often, the solicitation of outside funding. Some example of these, along with other information on PACSCL, can be found here. It also involves opportunities for member library staff to forge connections and share expertise.

PACSCL is governed by a board of directors, composed primarily of official library representatives, elected at an annual meeting by representatives of each member library. You’ll find the board and member representatives listed at https://pacscl.org/pacscl-board-and-member-representatives/ .  (PACSCL has also established a class of three directors reserved for staff who are not the institutions’ official representatives as part of its effort to provide a broader diversity of outlook.)  PACSCL encourages member representatives to share information on committee and working group opportunities with relevant staff. Membership in these groups isn’t restricted to official representatives — so check with your rep to see if there’s a group that’s right for you.

We hope that you will join in the life of PACSCL by attending meetings and by subscribing to our pacscl-l Google group. This is a closed group and the most effective way to request a subscription is by emailing the Managing Director at director@pacscl.org. This group is used to post PACSCL meeting notices and invitations to join committees and working groups. It is also used by members to share important information on new programs, exhibitions and events, new acquisitions, new staff, and position openings. Postings to pacscl-l also help to keep you abreast of happenings in related organizations in our area, such as the Delaware Valley Archivists Group, PhillyDH, the Philadelphia Area Conservation Association, Code4Lib, and other archival and museum groups.

PACSCL also has a social media presence, forwarding items from our member libraries and from professional associations, as well as occasional news from the Philadelphia area cultural community and from libraries worldwide. Like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pacscl/ or follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/pacscl .