The purpose of Long Beach City College Library is to support the educational mission of the College by anticipating and fulfilling the information needs of the diverse student, faculty, administration, staff, and community populations. The goal of the Library program is to prepare all students—transfer, vocational, and lifelong learners—to function effectively in a highly technological society with an information-based economy. Library systems are designed, and the staff is organized and committed, to achieving the following objective: to help users develop information competency, a broad-based literacy that includes the skill to identify, retrieve, evaluate, and apply information to a problem-solving context.
In order to accomplish this goal, the Library faculty and staff provide users with access to recorded knowledge, in print, nonprint, electronic, and digitized formats, necessary to support the instructional programs, research efforts, and social responsibilities of the College. The Library endeavors to fulfill the following objectives:
- to function as a vital information center, supporting the educational process of the College;
- to collect, classify, index, and provide access to materials in all formats in support of the College's curriculum and programs;
- to function as a virtual library, providing users with a gateway to external information resources, such as library catalogs and a myriad of digitized information available on the Internet and the World Wide Web, in a seamless environment;
- to maintain a Library website, which gives users information about collections and services and leads them to databases of article citations and full-text journals and Web-based reference resources;
- to instruct students, staff, and faculty in the use of the Library's print, nonprint, and electronic resources;
- to promote, support, and maintain a high level of professional development and training of Library staff and faculty, especially in regard to rapidly-changing information technologies;
- to develop a curriculum centered around the development of information competencies;
- to teach courses, workshops, and orientations that help students develop information and critical-thinking skills in the online, interactive environment;
- to encourage students' participation in their educational process, research, and learning experiences;
- to provide a stimulating, scholarly environment, conducive to academic pursuits;
- to improve and increase library outreach to students, faculty, and the College community;
- to design, create, and prepare instructional materials in support of the curriculum, such as course websites, tutorials, handouts, research guides, and pathfinders, and to make these materials accessible to distant learners and the on-site community of users via the Library website;
- to serve as an information and referal resource to the outside community;
- to provide support for distance-education programs; and
- to serve the off-site, online College community.
Get Long Beach City College's mission statement
