By Pegge Howland
MCCLPHEI MCCLPHEI?! What's a MCCLPHEI? How do you spell it? What's it mean? I can't tell you how many times some bigwig from Baton has asked me one of those questions. So, what is a MCCLPHEI? I hope you are going to find out tonight with my help.
Officially, MCCLPHEI is an acronym for Massachusetts Conference of Chief Librarians of public Higher Educational Institutions. There I've said it, and I hope I got it right. I have been associated with MCCLPHEI for 33 years, 22 as a member and 10 as a retiree, I guess that's why I'm here, and to tell you something about it's founding and the early years. I may have been a good choice because; I am an inveterate collector and saved all the MCCLPHEI minutes from 1968 when I became Director of the Library at Greenfield Community College, through 1990 when I retired. My remarks will be based almost entirely on those minutes oral the attendant records.
MCCLPHEI was formally founded in the spring of 1968, but the seeds of its founding were actually sown at least a year before that. Two important things occurred in 1967 that significantly contributed to the events that led up to the founding. One was the appearance of a book published by the American Library Association (ALA) entitled Books for College Libraries : A Selected List of Approximately 53, 400 Titles Based on the initial Selection Made for the University of California. The other was that several Massachusetts State Colleges had been through the accreditation process in 1967 with dire results, and I quote from the State College Trustees Report on Unsolved Problems "The Libraries, however, remain our critical problem. Neither in terms of professional or clerical staff, nor in the number of volumes, do any of the State College Libraries meet minimum standards set by the ALA." As a result, the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education took steps to get the Massachusetts Legislature to consider floating a bond issue to farad the purchase of enough books from the Books for College Libraries list to bring each state institution of higher education library into compliance with ALA standards.
Let me remind you that the Massachusetts Institutions of Higher Education at that time consisted of 12 Community Colleges, 10 State Colleges (including Lowell State College), UMass‑Amherst, UMass‑Boston, Lowell Technological Institute, and Southeastern Massachusetts Technological Institute (in North Dartmouth). The Community Colleges had formed themselves into a segment called The Council of Community College Librarians and the State Colleges had formed a similar segmental group known as The Council of State College Librarians. What happened on that fateful spring day in 1968was nicely summarized in a news article released by William D. Joyce, Librarian of Worcester State College and dated May 15; 1968:
"At a meeting of the Council of Massachusetts State College Librarians at Provincetown on May 10, 1968 attended by representatives from the libraries of the State Colleges, the Community Colleges, Southeastern Massachusetts Technological Institute (SMTI), the University of Massachusetts in Boston and addressed by Dr. Richard M. Millard, Chancellor of Higher Education in the Commonwealth, it was decided by unanimous action of the librarians present to form a group to be known as the Massachusetts Conference of Chief Librarians of Public Higher Educational Institutions. The group was formed in response to chancellor Millard's presentation of the problems facing the libraries in those institutions. The conference will meet at least three times a year, and its mission will be to identify problems common to all the libraries and to perform appropriate research in order to bring forth recommendations for their solution. Some of the most pressing problems concern the building of adequate basic book collections in the public educational institutions of the Commonwealth.
The meeting was chaired by Mr. William T. Casey, Head Librarian, State College at Fitchburg, and chairman of the Council of Massachusetts State College Librarians. He set June 3, 1968 as the time for the first meeting of the newly formed group. It wilt be held at the Board of Higher Education Offices on Tremont Street in Boston at 10:30 A.M."
Thusit was that the first meeting of MCCLPHEI was held on June 3, 1968. After electing Frank Jones from SMTI as chairman, the main topic of discussion was how to implement the impending bond issue for books. Remember there were a lot of stumbling blocks to overcome: some of the libraries still used the Dewey system of classification; the Community Colleges needed AV materials as well as books; who would order and process the material?; how would it all be cataloged?; what about substitutions?; deadlines?; etc. In a magnificent show of cooperation among the three segments all these problems and many more were successfully negotiated through MCCLPHEI surveys and meetings. The Books for College Libraries was to be used as the main control list; Library of Congress classification numbers and L.C. cards were accepted as the basic norm; centralized processing would be done by Mass‑Amherst with its computer; a supplemental list was developed for substitutions; no AV material would be allowed (this time around). In the MCCLPHEI minutes of October 7, 1968 the BCL project, as it was now called was described as consisting of 413,000 volumes proportional by segment. Five million dollars would be requested of the Legislature; 53,500,000 for book purchases and $1,500,000 for processing and recataloging. By April1970 BCL‑1 had been funded and books were beginning to flow into the libraries. MCCLPHEI had also adopted a Constitution and Bylaws, but not without a fight! There was always some College president who worried about the Chief Librarians "organizing" or getting so much power that it might jeopardize local campus authority. Even that hurdle was overcome through very careful wording in the constitution.
BCL was supposed to be a once‑in‑a‑lifetime project, but through the exquisite planning, information gathering and presentation efforts of MCCLPHEI the BCL‑2 project was proposed and approved by the Legislature in July 1970. Although the name remained the same the basic selection device for BCL‑2 became MARC tapes (a new arid innovative use of the tapes, by the way). Very complex formulas were developed over the years for BCL‑3 and its descendants such as the ERM (Educational Reference Materials). Richard Talbot, Director of Libraries at UMass‑Amherst, and later Greg Masterson, Librarian at Cape Cod C. C. are two who worked tirelessly at gathering data and number crunching for this purpose. You see, the legislature demanded, again and again, that we prove the need for the funding, and assure them that the formula was unanimously agreed upon by each and every institution. Sometimes huge arguments arose at MCCLPHEI meetings over the division of the money, especially when the amount was less than expected. Once or twice a member stormed out of a meeting in a huff over the segmental proportions. But despite the arguments, the tears, the threats, eventually the members always compromised and stuck together for the mutual good of all. It was definitely a case, as Benjamin Franklin said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." In effect MCCLPHEI had become a lobby for its member libraries and a very effective, and now esteemed, group of librarians recognized by all the bigwigs in Boston as "Oh yes, MCCLPHEI.". In fact, MCCLPHEI became famous around the state for its ability to cooperate and pull together in order to influence the legislature on its behalf.
1974 was a notable year in our history for it was then that we instituted our first Annual Workshop and Conference. It was a three day affair held on June 17‑20, 1974 at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. We stayed overnight in the Academy dormitory, ate all our meals together in the "mess hall," had a "clamboil" for dinner one night, and generally enjoyed ourselves immensely while listening and learning from 2 main speakers and 2 panel discussions. In fact we liked it so mach that we continued to have our Annual Conferences at the Mass. Maritime for the next, seven years. After a hiatus of two years in 1982 and 1983 when we met at UMass‑Amherst and Fitchburg S.C. respectively, in 1984 we began to hold the event at Briarwood Conference Center at Monument Beach, MA. These conferences were always well attended and were quite useful in pulling the group together to consider mutual problems while having fun at the same time. They were very important in that they helped build collegiality and respect among the group. We continued to meet at Briarwood until the mid‑1990s when they finally asked us to leave because we were too "raucous" for their religious sensibilities.
I became President of MCCLPHEI in the summer of 1978 and two important things were accomplished during my administration. (Hold up Logo). Of course you recognize this as the MCCLPHEI logo. It was designed by Ben Hopkins, Director of the Library at Massachusetts College of Art, and it was adopted on January 8, 1979. May I remind you of its significance? The tree, of course, is the "tree of life." It has its roots in a book that symbolizes a library (and by inference, knowledge). In other words knowledge nourishes our lives. Oh, I know that sounds kind of idealistic, but we were idealists then fiercely so. And as far as I can see, you still are. But idealism must be made into reality and that can only happen when everyone pulls together to make it happen.
In closing I want to thank Maurice Bosse for keeping all my records (two boxes full) safe and sound at the Maritime Academy all these years and providing them to me when I needed them. You see, that was the other important thing that happened during my tenure as President of MCCLPHEI, we adopted a constitutional amendment to provide for the establishment of an Archives and an Archivist. Maurice Bosse was duly elected as Archivist and, I guess, has held the position ever since.
Thank you for your time and God bless MCCLPHEI May it live long and prosper!!
June 2004