Mission Statement

The mission of Penfield Library is to make available a wide range of information resources in all formats, as well as a broad offering of services, to support the instructional, research and service goals of the State University College at Oswego. The library strives to stimulate the intellectual and personal development of students, faculty and staff of the College through use of its resources, services and staff. When possible, the library also extends services to those outside the college community.

Goals

To select, acquire and preserve information resources in various formats that best support the curricular, research, and information needs of our students and the college community; to select these resources as equitably as possible and to provide access when and where it is needed.

To provide access to resources that reflect a wide range of viewpoints and approaches to disciplines in support of the College's and the American Library Association's commitments to diversity.

To process materials in a timely manner and provide the most complete and accurate bibliographic access, including assigning classifications and appropriate subject headings, for the easiest and most effective use of Penfield Library's collections.

To provide quality reference service in person, by telephone and electronically for accessing and using Penfield's collections and resources and, when needed, to identify those not held in Penfield.

To locate and acquire, whenever possible, through interlibrary loan, consortia agreements, and document delivery, a wide variety of materials considered to be important components of the educational and research needs of our college community; to lend materials, following American Library Association guidelines, to other institutions.

To facilitate physical access to the Library's collections and to preserve these collections for future use by maintaining them in an organized, secure environment.

To provide appropriate levels of technology to enable library faculty and staff to deliver high quality services, and library users to access needed information resources in a timely and efficient manner.

To actively promote and provide leadership in the development of information literacy skills of students, faculty and staff of the College by offering a variety of classroom, workshop and online experiences utilizing both traditional and high tech methodologies.

To follow respective government guidelines as a Selective Depository for United States Documents and a Research Depository for New York State documents in the selection, maintenance, and access to materials in these collections.

To receive, preserve, organize, and make available materials in various formats on the history and culture of the College at Oswego and Oswego County and surrounding areas.

To maintain a highly skilled staff through systematic programs of career development and effective utilization of individual talents; to prepare staff to meet the needs of library users in a courteous, informed, equitable, and professional manner.

To provide an aesthetically pleasing and comfortable environment with appropriate furnishings and study areas that encourage use of the library, its resources and its collections.

To promote a love of learning and an awareness of the distinctive role of the library's on-site and web-based resources as a gateway to knowledge.

To provide for unaffiliated, local users basic reference service, access to the library's collections, limited circulation with a community borrower's card, and Library Instruction for area high school students as delineated in the Oswego County School District / Penfield Library agreement, and for other special groups as time and policy allow.

Library Philosophy

Penfield Library supports the 1999 Association of Research Libraries' Keystone Principles:

• Access to Information as a Public Good
• Need for Bias-free Systems and for Libraries to Create These New Systems
• Affirm the Idea of the Library as a Nexus for Learning and for the Sharing of Knowledge