The mission of the library media center program is to ensure the students and staff are effective users of ideas and information. This mission encompasses a number of specific objectives:

1. To provide intellectual access to information through systematic learning activities which develop cognitive strategies for selecting, retrieving, analyzing, evaluating, synthesizing, and creating information at all age levels and in all curriculum content areas.

2. To provide physical access to information through (a) a carefully selected and systematically organized collection of diverse learning resources, representing a wide range of subjects, level of difficulty, communication formats, and technological delivery systems: (b) access to information and materials outside the library media center and the school building through such mechanisms as inter-library loan, networking and other cooperative agreements, and online searching of databases: and (c) providing instruction in the operation of equipment necessary to use information in any format.

3. To provide learning experiences that encourage users to become discriminating consumers and skilled creators of information through introduction to the full range of communications media and use of the new and emerging information technologies.

4. To provide leadership, instruction, and consulting assistance in the use of instructional and information technology and the use of sound instructional design principles.

5. To provide resources and activities that contribute to lifelong learning, while accommodating a wide range of differences in teaching and learning styles and in instructional methods, interests, and capacities.

6. To provide a facility that functions as the information center of the school, as a focus for integrated, interdisiplinary, intergrade, and school wide learning activities.

7. To provide resources and learning activities that represent a diversity of experiences, opinions, social and cultural perspectives, supporting the concept that intellectual freedom and access to information are prerequisite to effective and responsible citizenship in a democracy.

 

Achievement of this mission at both school and district levels also requires: