Answer

The NWTC Library's physical and virtual collections exist to support the programs offered by the College. Resources are acquired in accordance with the following priorities ranked in descending order of importance: 

  1. Resources to support NWTC's academic programs, institutional learning outcomes, and educational initiatives.  

  1. General reference works and resources in fields not currently related to NWTC programs, but which are of such importance that they belong in any academic library.  

  1. Resources to support the research needs of employees and to assist them in the performance of their duties.  

  1. Resources to maintain and develop a limited number of special collections; to form a foundation collection in support of anticipated future programs; to support cooperative programs with other libraries or academic institutions; and to provide some recreational materials (if budget allows).

Selection Guidelines

Selection is based on a set of guidelines used in making decisions about the addition of resources to the collection: 

  • Permanent or timely value of the resource for interest, information or enlightenment

  • Accuracy of the resource

  • Authoritativeness of the resource and/or its author

  • Usefulness of the resource with respect to other resources already in the collection or easily available from other collections, including: representation of all sides of controversial issues; avoidance of resources which duplicate, either outright or in substance, resources already held; avoidance of expensive resources of limited use when they are available through other libraries in the region

  • Scarcity of resources on the subject

  • Cost of the resource in comparison with other equally useful resources  

  • Form of the resource in comparison with other available forms of the same resource

Recommendations & Donations

We love to get recommendations from students and employees for new purchases! Email the Research & Library Services Manager to let us know which items you would like to see in the NWTC Library (or just tell any of the Library staff members at our locations).

Suggestions and materials received as donations will be evaluated by the same criteria as materials that are purchased as part of collection development. Fiction materials received as donations will be added to the Fiction Center or the Diverse Voices collection unless a copy of the title is already in the collection or the physical condition of the book is poor.

Donations that are not kept for the Library's collections will be sold or recycled.

Materials Challenged for Reconsideration

As a forum for the free exchange of ideas, the NWTC Library provides resources offering the widest variety of viewpoints. The Library believes that censorship is a purely individual matter and declares that, while any person is free to reject for themselves materials of which they do not approve, no one can exercise this right of censorship to restrict the freedom of others to read, view, listen, or inquire.

Users with active NWTC Library accounts (or parents of minors with active accounts) who object to resources in the collection can submit their concerns by emailing the Research & Library Services Manager for reconsideration. Individuals can only have 5 active challenges at any given time. The points of contention for the objection must come from the submitter's own reading of the work rather than being copied and pasted from anywhere else.

To be considered, a challenge must:

  1. be submitted to the manager in writing directly from an active library user (or parent of minor library user)
  2. include the name of the author, title, publisher, and call number (if applicable) of the work in question
  3. include specific reference(s) to the page(s) and text(s) to which the objection is being made from the submitter's own reading
  4. provide the submitter's name and address that will allow for a reply

The manager and the dean will review the request based on the Library's collection development goals and guidelines. The resource will remain available until a final decision has been made and shared with the concerned NWTC Library user or parent of minor library user. Please allow 30 days for responding to an active challenge. 

The Library may take a number of actions including removal of the material, re-labeling/classification of the material, providing other restrictions on the material, or no action at all. Once a decision has been made regarding an item, that decision will remain in place for at least an entire academic year.

Note: The NWTC Library strives to provide different points of view. Inclusion of a particular resource does not constitute endorsement or advocacy of the ideas or statements found therein. 

The Library follows the principles of intellectual freedom outlined in the Library Bill of Rights of the American Library Association, the Freedom to Read Statement, the Freedom to View Statement, and the Intellectual Freedom Principles for Academic Libraries. In following these, the NWTC Library will not automatically withdraw materials in response to a request from an individual or group. 

Collection Maintenance

The Library's collection is evaluated regularly to ensure the materials are still reliable, up-to-date, and attractive. The evaluation process provides information that can be useful in making decisions regarding purchases and weeding.  

Deselection is the removal of obsolete materials, excess copies, seldom-used titles, and badly damaged copies. This process of "weeding" the collection occurs daily as materials are returned and considered for re-shelving, annually during inventory and magazine subscription renewal decisions, and periodically during deselection projects (usually at least five years apart to ensure that enough circulation data is available for decisions). 

Library staff choose items for deselection by using the following standard weeding criteria (MUSTIE).  Most of the time items will need to meet more than one of these criteria before they are discarded, but if they meet any of the criteria they should be considered for deselection. 

  • Misleading and/or factually inaccurate
  • Ugly (worn out beyond mending or rebinding)
  • Superseded by a new edition or a better source
  • Trivial (of no discernable literary or scientific merit)
  • Irrelevant to the needs and interests of your community
  • Elsewhere (the material may be easily borrowed from another source).  

Additional considerations include:

  • Frequency of use since added to the collection
  • Multiple copies available in the collections
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