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Policies and Statements: Departmental Statements

Mission & Vision Statements

Mission

The library advances the teaching mission and intellectual life of the College by offering inclusive services and programs, selecting diverse materials, and facilitating equal access to information for all. The library promotes information literacy by instructing in the ethical use, interpretation, and evaluation of resources.

Vision

The library engages students in critical inquiry, empowering them to develop the skills and mindsets to succeed as lifelong learners by equipping them with resources and materials that reflect a diversity of lived experiences. The library supports the curriculum with materials for course-related and independent learning, provides leadership in fostering information literacy across the curriculum, informs the community of emerging issues in information policy and trends, cultivates physical and online spaces conducive to learning, and supports the intellectual and cultural life of the College. Our work is informed by a deep commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging and empowers the entire Gustavus community to pursue intellectual freedom.

Adopted by the library faculty and staff, Spring 2023

Open Access Pledge

The Gustavus library faculty believes that open access to scholarship is critical for scholarly communication and for the future of libraries. For that reason we pledge to make our own research freely available whenever possible by seeking publishers that have either adopted open access policies, publish contents online without restriction, and/or allow authors to self-archive their publications on the web. We pledge to link to and/or self-archive our publications to make them freely accessible.

Librarians may submit their work to a publication that does not follow open access principles and will not allow self archiving only if it is clearly the best or only option for publication; however, librarians will actively seek out publishers that allow them to make their research available freely online and, when necessary, will negotiate with publishers to improve publication agreements.

Other statements

More via ROARMAP

Resources

Statement on Intellectual Freedom

We believe unfettered access to information is critical for communities to make informed decisions. We resist censorship in all of its forms. We affirm the right of individuals to inquire in privacy without fear that what they read will be used against them.

The American Library Association’s Code of Ethics states that librarians “have a special obligation to ensure the free flow of information and ideas to present and future generations.” The Library Bill of Rights also states “libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.” In that spirit, we oppose on principle all efforts to silence speech and restrict access to information.

Passed on November 30, 2012

Note: This statement was passed by the faculty of the Folke Bernadotte Memorial Library, in the wake of the removal of posters about the GustieLeaks website from campus in fall 2012, when the library faculty felt that, regardless of the motives for or contents of the website, it was important to affirm our core professional values as librarians.

Statement Condemning Violence & Racism

The Library faculty at Gustavus Adolphus College support the Association of College & Research Libraries, the American Library Association, and the Society of American Archivists in condemning violence and racism towards Black people and all people of color. We endorse the statement of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, which condemns the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers within the Minneapolis Police Department. We endorse the statement of the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association, which denounces the rise in racism and xenophobia against Asians and Asian/Pacific Americans in wake of the outbreak of COVID-19. We uphold the principle that freedom of expression, including the freedoms of speech and assembly, is an inalienable human right. We affirm our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and to advancing the production and dissemination of knowledge and exchange of ideas for justice.

Signed by Rachel Flynn, Julie Gilbert, Anna Hulseberg, Jeff Jenson, Dan Mollner, and Michelle Twait

June 8, 2020

 

Harmful Language Statement

The Gustavus Library is committed to fostering an inclusive and welcoming environment for all our patrons. We acknowledge that harmful and outdated language or terminology exists in catalog records for our materials, though, and we would welcome your help in identifying such instances.

If you encounter any language that you consider to be harmful or offensive to yourself or others, please use this form to report it and suggest alternative language. We will contact the Library of Congress to request that changes be made whenever we come across items under their purview and will supplement our own descriptions with more respectful terms as necessary. We also direct you to our entire Harmful Language Statement for more information. 

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0