SCOPE AND FOCUS

                                                                            OF

                                     LIBRARY COLLECTIONS AND RESOURCES

 

Rod Library strives to provide access to resources in support of the instructional, research, and informational needs of the students, faculty, and staff of its parent institution, the University of Northern Iowa.  In so doing, it recognizes the university’s tripartite commitment to teaching, scholarship, and service.  It also seeks to contribute to the development of a diverse, dynamic learning environment. (“Focused on Excellence,” University of Northern Iowa Strategic Plan, 2001 - 2006)

 

The mission of the Rod Library is to “support the instructional, scholarly, and outreach missions of the University.   It also seeks to address the popular and recreational reading interests of the university community.  It is not the library's intent to serve as a library of record for any discipline, but rather to provide “access to a focused collection of resources.”  The University Archives, housed in the library, do serve such a purpose for institutional history.  The collection management program seeks to address information and resource needs through interaction with university faculty and staff, systematic collection evaluation, interinstitutional cooperation and resource sharing, and consideration of preservation concerns.

 

The Library seeks to support the university’s commitment to the enhancement of racial and cultural diversity in its faculty, staff, and student populations, and to globalization of the campus through recruitment, curricular offerings, cultural programs, and faculty and student exchanges. In developing local collections and providing access to remote electronic resources, the library seeks to make available materials on subjects that it anticipates will meet the needs and interests of university constituencies.  In doing so, it strives for representation of a broad range of viewpoints on both current and historical issues; these may be cultural, economic, political, racial, religious, sexual, or social in nature.  It seeks balance through the representation of diverse perspectives, not through making available equal numbers of titles that espouse certain viewpoints.    The majority of the resources to which the Library provides access are English-language materials; however, an effort is made to make available materials in other languages in support of the curricula and the varied interests of members of the university community.  The Library endorses and complies with the American Library Association Library Bill of Rights and accompanying statements of interpretation issued by the Association.  It develops local collections and provides access to remote electronic resources under the provisions of the Code of Iowa, and in compliance with the university’s Use of Computing Resources Policy.  Materials are not excluded from the collection because of the origin, background, or beliefs of the author, sponsor, or others involved in their production and dissemination.

 

Challenges to materials that are in the local collection or otherwise made accessible by the Library should be directed, in writing, to the Head of the Collection Management and Special Services Department.  All challenges will be reviewed and careful consideration given to representing diverse viewpoints.  However, the Library will not add or withdraw, at the request of any individual or group, materials that have been chosen or excluded on the basis of stated selection criteria. 

 

 

March 1999; updated February 2005