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Mission, Vision, Values
Library Mission
The Mission of the Prairie State College Library is to be the
library of choice for students, faculty, staff
and members of the community. We will achieve this by pioneering
innovative policies, services, and a
physical and digital environment where students, faculty, staff
and members of the community canexplore and discover their world,
relate and connect to their community, develop and foster their
identity, grow and expand their mind, and find and inspire their
creativity.
Library Vision
Prairie State College Library will be a catalyst in building a
vibrant, intellectual, creative college
culture. We will be a place where ideas transcend disciplinary
boundaries, programs and cultures.
By providing pioneering, innovative, effective, and accessible
resources, spaces and services, the
College Library will contribute to the Colleges efforts to
provide student-centered instruction
leading to student success.
Library Core Values
We believe that each student is unique and important, and that
providing comfortable,engaging, and task-appropriate places of
study, research, work, reflection, and interaction is
crucial to their success.
We see the library as an extension of the classroom experience
and encourage the creation ofknowledge and the learning
process.
We make every attempt to ensure that our resources are dynamic,
accessible, formatappropriate, and add relevance to the student
researcher.
We have the utmost respect for the diversity of our students,
staff, and faculty. We also valuethe different needs, passions and
interests of our students, staff, and faculty.
We celebrate the creative output of Prairie State College.
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Message from the Dean
Traditionally, annual reports are retrospective. But this year,
myfirst since assuming the deanship of the Prairie State College
Library,
on November 28, 2011, I would like to begin my review of the
past
year with a look at some exciting first steps we have just taken
torealize an inspiring future for the Library.
Libraries do and should change lives, serving not only as
much-needed providers of books and
services but also as dynamic, vibrant student-centered community
hubs where creativity,
scholarship and ideas are born and then nurtured. To that end,
the Librarys Leadership Teamrecently approved a sweeping set of
initiatives that would revitalize our Library through greatly
enhanced programming efforts, shifts in collection development
policies, and pursuit of a new
Library paradigm. This includes the proposed institutional
repository which will collect, highlight
and share all the creative output and scholarship of PSCs
outstanding students.
PSC Library will continue to do what it has always done, and
done superblyonly bigger and
better. As this years Annual Report demonstrates, The Prairie
State College Library is a heavilyused learning environment for
students, an environment whose expert and dedicated staff serve
our ever-evolving student needsnot only at Prairie State
College, but throughout the southsuburbs.
As a community college graduate, I know that most learning
occurs outside of the classroom, and at
Prairie State College that learning happens at a students third
place. And at the heart of the that
third place stands the library, that quietand sometimes not so
quietplace where Pioneers ofall ages and backgrounds come together
toexplore and discover their world, relate and connect to
their community, develop and foster their identity, grow and
expand their mind, and find and inspire
their creativity.
Nothing perhaps better symbolizes the centrality of the Prairie
State College Librarys commitmentto the community of scholars at
PSC and the surrounding community as our implementation of a
One Book, One Community program, which will kickoff in late
April, 2013. This program is a
collaborative partnership between the PSC Library and allof the
public libraries in District 515.
This years One Book, One Community is the Immortal Life of
Henrietta Lacks. This
multidisciplinary book is well suited to meet a variety of
scholarly endeavors at PSC. Moreover, this
programs strong partnership will allow PSC to be in every public
library in the district. This
program will create a single cultural experience for the
residents of district 515, and will provide
ways for neighbors to connect with each other, their community,
and our College.
Today, libraries must encompass more than books, no matter how
essential those resources are not
just for current scholars, but also for future generations of
researchers and students. Digitally, PSC
Library is charting the course for libraries of the futureas of
course we must, and because of ourbrilliant and always
forward-thinking staff, are uniquely equipped to do. For starters,
our recent
focus on eBooks and other eContent has been used more in a short
few months than our entire
print collection. In addition, we our pioneering highly
innovative, interactive and integrated
experiences for our students that will allow for improved
focused and serendipitous discovery of
the Librarys resources.
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I look forward to realizing the great mission of our Library by
embracing three key areas: a
complete reenvisioning of our Library space, including student
focus groups that will refocus and
expand our much-needed educational services; the creation of a
boundary-breaking PSC Library
space, making it a hub of intellectual curiosity for students
throughout the College; and the creation
of a true Virtual Library to accommodate current and future
student needs. All of this will only be
possible with the complete and dedicated cooperation of our
valued staff, administration, faculty,
staff, and Board. I am confident this will be a given, as it has
been in this past year of so manysuccesses on so many fronts at the
Library.
Respectfully submitted on behalf of the PSC Library Team,
Dr. Anthony Molaro, Associate Dean of Library and Instructional
Services
