The main objective of the Clarence Mitchell Library is to build and maintain a strong, coherent, balanced, and dynamic library collection which supports the curriculum and educational mission of the college. In addition we attempt to collect popular reading and listening materials to appeal to a wide range

of the public who reside in our district.

Selection Guidelines

The Dean of Learning Resources of Highland Community College allocates the Library’s book and serials budgets in order to fulfill the Library’s collection development objectives. We solicit suggestions from students, staff and faculty and will make every attempt to satisfy those requests within the limits of the library budget. Materials purchased by the library will be added to the general collection and made available to the general library community through interlibrary loan as well as locally on campus. Should staff wish to locate materials permanently in their respective department(s), that department is expected to allocate funds for such purchases. New formats will be tried in order to permit library patron experimentation with unusual and unique formats as they evolve The library staff will make every effort to collect controversial materials and items that reflect a multitude of viewpoints.

Selection Responsibility

Final responsibility for the selection of Library materials and fulfillment of stated Collection Development objectives rests with the library director and the library staff. However, the librarians rely heavily on the teaching faculty to recommend new materials for purchase to support their departments, as only the teaching faculty have the in-depth subject knowledge necessary to guide the library’s collection to best suit the needs of each department. It is the librarians’ hope that the teaching faculty will monitor their professional literature for appropriate additions to the Library’s holdings, and will request purchase of all resources most useful for course requirements and research needs. Student, public and staff requests for materials acquisitions are welcomed and encouraged. They will be subject to the same selection guidelines

standards as are all other requests.

Materials Selection

Emphasis should be placed on the selection of current materials, since the Library and faculty have already reviewed and purchased materials published each year during the past several decades of continuing book selection. However, this does not preclude purchasing materials of historic interest to a discipline, purchasing materials from a wide time-frame for new areas of collection, or filling gaps in existing collection areas caused by oversights of previous selectors or biases of previous collection policies.   Continue.