The Crowder College Bill and Margot Lee Library Mission

The mission of the Lee Library is to provide access to, and instruction in, the use of information resources and services that support the academic programs of the academic community by:

• Providing a facility for students that creates an atmosphere conducive to study and research.
• Provide a professional librarian and qualified support staff to assist users with their information needs.
• Provide an organized and accessible collection of information resources and access to external resources.
• Provide instruction, in partnership with classroom faculty, in the use of the information resources and services to enhance college success and develop skills for lifelong learning.

Goals

Goal 1.  Efficiently acquire, organize, maintain, and preserve materials which support the curriculum, faculty/student research, other college information needs, and the recreational needs of the dormitory students.

Collection Development

a.  Responsibility  While the Board of Trustees of the college is legally responsible for the selection of library materials, the actual delegation of this responsibility is to the Director of the Bill and Margot Lee Library with input from other library staff, faculty, staff, and administrators of the institution.

b.  Selection Criteria and Procedures  Materials housed in the Lee Library are selected primarily to support and strengthen the academic curriculum, but also to provide interest, information, and enlightenment for the college community.  

Materials are selected to present all points of view concerning the problems and issues of our time. Criteria used to evaluate materials include appropriateness of the medium, correlation to the existing collection, literary style and quality, author's expertise, technical quality, organization, timeliness/permanence, insight into the human condition, scarcity of material available on the subject, demand, cost effectiveness and the availability of funds, appropriateness of material for the clientele, and relevance to instructional needs.

c.  Gifts  Gift materials are selected for addition to the collection by the same criteria as those purchased. No faculty or staff are authorized to solicit, accept or reject nonmonetary gifts without consulting the Library Director. Items added to the collection are processed according to college and library procedures. All other materials are generally held for the annual Friends of the Library book sale. The Library staff provides a letter of acknowledgment of receipt but does not appraise the value of the materials donated.

d.  Removal of Materials  Materials which are worn, out-dated, or no longer meet the criteria above will be withdrawn and disposed of in accordance with college and Library procedures. In addition to ongoing weeding by the Library Director, every five years instructors from the various subject areas conduct a hands-on evaluation of the collection in order to recommend materials for removal from the collection.

Cataloging  Items in the permanent collection are cataloged by a professional cataloger following standard library conventions (currently the Anglo American Cataloging Rules II , the Dewey Decimal Classification System with Library of Congress subject headings, and the USMARC format).

Goal 2.  Provide a technologically literate staff, state-of-the-art equipment, technology, and facilities necessary for the effective access and utilization of information resources.

Lee Library staff participate in staff development technology training which is offered to campus employees and also participate in other workshops involving various library software. Outmoded equipment and older software are replaced as funds are available.

Goal 3.  Provide a user-friendly environment conducive to patron needs.

Staff is available to assist patrons in locating and accessing information resources.

Patrons complaints, questions, and comments are addressed promptly. The maintenance department promptly addresses heating, cooling, and lighting issues in the Lee Library.

Goal 4.  Increase awareness and use of library resources and services.

Lee Library is included on the new student orientation tours. Library instruction sessions are provided to all classes upon faculty request. One-on-one instruction is provided at point of use within the library.

A Friends of the Library organization works to increase awareness among the community. Activities include programs with guest speakers supported by the Missouri Humanities and the annual spring book sale.

Information on resources and services in the Lee Library is disseminated to potential users by means of campus publications, e-mail, and the library web page.

Goal 5.  Cooperate with other libraries and organizations to increase access to additional resources.

Lee Library is a member of the SWAN cluster of MOBIUS. The common library platform project of MOBIUS permits students and faculty of nearly every academic library in Missouri to connect directly to a single statewide database and will provide direct services including search retrieval. The benefits include improved access to the 22 million items in Missouri’s academic libraries, enhanced patron services through direct borrowing, with lower transaction costs, three-day delivery of requested materials among member libraries, and support for other services such as electronic indexes, database and electronic document delivery, and resource sharing of primary library materials.

Lee Library has also participated since 1981 in a reciprocal borrowing agreement with other academic libraries in southwest Missouri. The library is also a member of two interlibrary loan borrowing groups which do not charge for lending to other members, and has an informal reciprocal agreement with the local public library. Catalog holdings are regularly entered in to the OCLC database so that libraries across the nation and around the world are able to see if a particular title is located at Crowder. Since 1995-1996, the library has used Ariel software to transmit interlibrary loan photocopies over the Internet.