MassDevelopment Finances New Library Facilities for Five College Consortium

November 17, 2016

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:
Meggie Quackenbush, MassDevelopment, 617-330-2011 & 857-208-2777 (cell)
mquackenbush@massdevelopment.com

Barbara Lucey, Five College Consortium, 413-542-4004
blucey@fivecolleges.edu

MassDevelopment has issued a $10,080,000 tax-exempt bond on behalf of Five Colleges, Incorporated, a nonprofit educational consortium based in Amherst. Five Colleges is using bond proceeds to buy approximately 12 acres of land in Hatfield and build, furnish and equip a 34,664-square-foot library annex. The library annex will house printed materials for which there is no longer space at Five College member schools. Citizens Funding Corp. purchased the bond.

“Five Colleges represents the collaborative and regional spirit of Massachusetts’ many higher education institutions, and we are pleased to invest in the future of its campus libraries,” said MassDevelopment President and CEO Marty Jones. “This bond will help the consortium expand its library facilities and add much-needed space for educational resources in western Massachusetts.”

Five Colleges was established in 1966 to promote the broad educational and cultural objectives of its associated institutions: Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Five Colleges serves these institutions by facilitating a variety of cooperative agreements, programs, and projects. It is responsible for administering long-term forms of cooperation that benefit faculty members, staff members, and students, such as shared use of educational and cultural resources and facilities, a joint automated library system, open cross-registration, shared faculty members, open theater auditions, joint departments and other academic programs, and inter-campus transportation.

“Our libraries have been collaborating since 1951 to increase student, faculty, and staff access to print and electronic materials,” said Neal Abraham, Five Colleges Executive Director. “They collaborated on the first shared off-campus shelving facility beginning in 2002, which now holds nearly 600,000 volumes. The new Library Annex will provide shelving for up to 2.5 million additional volumes, securing flexible library planning at our five institutions for the next decade or more."

MassDevelopment, the state’s finance and development agency, works with businesses, nonprofits, financial institutions, and communities to stimulate economic growth across the Commonwealth. During FY2016, MassDevelopment financed or managed 352 projects generating investment of more than $4 billion in the Massachusetts economy. These projects are projected to create about 8,200 jobs and build or rehabilitate about 4,200 residential units.