1. To use digital technology to increase access to archival collections in the Five College consortium relating to women's history and the history of the five colleges. The project will develop digitized versions of existing archival resources that are (a) broadly accessible, (b) useful as a tool to support the teaching and research missions of the five colleges, and (c) sustainable for future development.
2. To explore current digital technology in order to determine the resources and methods necessary for the selection, organization, electronic capture, storage, indexing and retrieval of large-scale archival collections in a variety of formats in the Five Colleges consortium.
3. To serve as a logistical model for future Five College collaborative initiatives.

The following criteria were drafted by the project team in July 1996 and are presented here in slightly revised form. 

Mandatory: 

• Cohesive thematic focus (tentatively identified as women's education, the question of co-education, and related issues in the development of the five colleges)
• Clear ownership of material and copyright to it; or, copyright permission is considered easily obtainable
• Scope of materials is broad enough to provide context for understanding their significance (i.e., not a sampling)
• Manageable size

• Processed with finding aid
• Stable, with little future growth and complex reprocessing anticipated
• Past user demand or anticipated future user demand justifies electronic access

• Visually interesting
• Diverse formats (e.g. text, still picture, motion picture, sound, microformat)