Mission, Vision, Values Library Mission The Mission of the Prairie State College Library is to be the library of choice

for students, faculty, staff and members of the community. We will achieve this by pioneering innovative policies, services, and a physical and digital environment where students, faculty, staff and members of the community can explore and discover their world, relate and connect to their community, develop and foster their identity, grow and expand their mind, and find and inspire their creativity. Library Vision Prairie State College Library will be a catalyst in building a vibrant, intellectual, creative college culture. We will be a place where ideas transcend disciplinary boundaries, programs and cultures. By providing pioneering, innovative, effective, and accessible resources, spaces and services, the College Library will contribute to the Colleges efforts to provide student-centered instruction leading to student success. Library Core Values We believe that each student is unique and important, and that providing comfortable, engaging, and task-appropriate places of study, research, work, reflection, and interaction is crucial to their success. We see the library as an extension of the classroom experience and encourage the creation of knowledge and the learning process. We make every attempt to ensure that our resources are dynamic, accessible, format appropriate, and add relevance to the student researcher. We have the utmost respect for the diversity of our students, staff, and faculty. We also value the different needs, passions and interests of our students, staff, and faculty. We celebrate the creative output of Prairie State College.

Message from the Dean

Traditionally, annual reports are retrospective. But this year, my

first since assuming the deanship of the Prairie State College Library, on November 28, 2011, I would like to begin my review of the past year with a look at some exciting first steps we have just taken to realize an inspiring future for the Library. Libraries do and should change lives, serving not only as much-needed providers of books and services but also as dynamic, vibrant student-centered community hubs where creativity, scholarship and ideas are born and then nurtured. To that end, the Librarys Leadership Team recently approved a sweeping set of initiatives that would revitalize our Library through greatly enhanced programming efforts, shifts in collection development policies, and pursuit of a new Library paradigm. This includes the proposed institutional repository which will collect, highlight and share all the creative output and scholarship of PSCs outstanding students. PSC Library will continue to do what it has always done, and done superblyonly bigger and better. As this years Annual Report demonstrates, The Prairie State College Library is a heavily used learning environment for students, an environment whose expert and dedicated staff serve our ever-evolving student needsnot only at Prairie State College, but throughout the south suburbs. As a community college graduate, I know that most learning occurs outside of the classroom, and at Prairie State College that learning happens at a students third place. And at the heart of the that third place stands the library, that quietand sometimes not so quietplace where Pioneers of all ages and backgrounds come together to explore and discover their world, relate and connect to their community, develop and foster their identity, grow and expand their mind, and find and inspire their creativity. Nothing perhaps better symbolizes the centrality of the Prairie State College Librarys commitment to the community of scholars at PSC and the surrounding community as our implementation of a One Book, One Community program, which will kickoff in late April, 2013. This program is a collaborative partnership between the PSC Library and all of the public libraries in District 515. This years One Book, One Community is the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. This multidisciplinary book is well suited to meet a variety of scholarly endeavors at PSC. Moreover, this programs strong partnership will allow PSC to be in every public library in the district. This program will create a single cultural experience for the residents of district 515, and will provide ways for neighbors to connect with each other, their community, and our College. Today, libraries must encompass more than books, no matter how essential those resources are not just for current scholars, but also for future generations of researchers and students. Digitally, PSC Library is charting the course for libraries of the futureas of course we must, and because of our brilliant and always forward-thinking staff, are uniquely equipped to do. For starters, our recent focus on eBooks and other eContent has been used more in a short few months than our entire print collection. In addition, we our pioneering highly innovative, interactive and integrated experiences for our students that will allow for improved focused and serendipitous discovery of the Librarys resources.

I look forward to realizing the great mission of our Library by embracing three key areas: a complete reenvisioning of our Library space, including student focus groups that will refocus and expand our much-needed educational services; the creation of a boundary-breaking PSC Library space, making it a hub of intellectual curiosity for students throughout the College; and the creation of a true Virtual Library to accommodate current and future student needs. All of this will only be possible with the complete and dedicated cooperation of our valued staff, administration, faculty, staff, and Board. I am confident this will be a given, as it has been in this past year of so many successes on so many fronts at the Library. Respectfully submitted on behalf of the PSC Library Team,

Dr. Anthony Molaro, Associate Dean of Library and Instructional Services