Our mission is to support learning by providing access to quality information resources, expert research assistance, customized instruction, and educational technology to the students, faculty, and staff at all NWACC campuses and in all NWACC online learning environments.
NWACC Library is located on the first floor of Burns Hall, in the Pauline Whitaker Library. Its staff of fourteen employees serves the information needs of over 5,000 students as well as NWACC's faculty and staff. Since its founding in 1990, the Library's physical collection has grown to include over 45,000 books, videos, and sound recordings. The Library also provides the NWACC community with access to nearly 70 subscription databases, which index thousands of electronic books, periodicals, and multimedia files.
The function of the Collection Policy is to serve as a set of guidelines for the acquisition and maintenance of the Library's collection. This collection consists of material in a variety of formats, including print, media, and electronic.
NWACC Library exists to meet the information needs of the students, faculty, and staff members of NorthWest Arkansas Community College by providing access to a wide range of quality resources for research and enlightenment. The Library's collection will be maintained in accordance with this objective.
Responsibility for the selection of Library materials resides with the Library Specialists Team. Professional selection tools, such as Choice Magazine, aid these selectors in identifying appropriate resources for purchase. Faculty, staff, and students are also encouraged to suggest titles for purchase. Recommend a title using the Purchase Suggestion Form.
Selection Guidelines Materials to be purchased for the collection will be chosen according to some or all of the following criteria:
Support of the Library's and College's mission
Appropriate content level for student use
Authority and reputation of author or publisher
Meets college curricular requirements
Timeliness and accuracy of information included
Cost
The Library does not normally purchase textbooks. Instead, these may be provided to the Library by instructors for inclusion in the Course Reserve Collection.
Withdrawal Guidelines Materials are removed from the Library's collection according to some or all of the following criteria:
Appearance or condition
Obsolete materials
Inappropriate content level
Material that does not support the curriculum
Furthermore, as revised or superseded titles are purchased, older editions may be moved to another section of the collection (as in the case of reference materials) or withdrawn from the collection.
Gift Policy The Library welcomes gifts of books and other library materials, but reserves the right to use and dispose of gift materials as seems appropriate for current needs.
Donated items will be added to the collection in accordance with the Collection Development Policy. The Library will acknowledge receipt of donated items but is unable to set a fair market or appraisal value on the material.
The Library reserves the right to refuse donations determined to be inappropriate for the collection. Because processing and/or disposing of donations takes valuable staff time and resources, we ask that donors limit gifts to items that are in good to excellent condition, clean, suitable for the academic environment, and current. For example, materials covering information in the health, science, and technology fields should typically be no more than three years old.
The Library reserves the right to refuse donations if the donor stipulates special conditions.
