Vogel Library Mission

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Vogel Library’s mission is to educate information-literate lifelong learners.

This means:

1. Educating students is our priority. It is the focus of all we do. While our information literacy program is the flagship, our more traditional library operations also contribute toward this goal:
• Information literacy instruction provides an opportunity to make appropriate information choices and to evaluate the quality of information.
• Reference service reinforces classroom learning in the context of answering individual questions and providing one-on-one guidance to students and staff.
• Interlibrary loan gives students access to a world of materials and ideas.
• Acquisitions / cataloging develops the collection which supports student and faculty learning.

Wartburg librarians are partners with classroom faculty in the college's educational enterprise. Our information literacy expertise complements the subject specializations of classroom faculty to create an integrated learning environment for students.

2. Information literacy is our foundation. We embrace the national Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (http://www.ala.org/acrl/ilcomstan.html) and that document’s definition of information literacy:

   "...a set of abilities requiring individuals to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information."

   In keeping with the standards, we emphasize the teaching of enduring concepts, not skills that obsolesce with changes in the next version of familiar software.

3. Producing lifelong learners is our objective. We intend to instill and reinforce in our students the abilities and habits of information-literate lifelong learning. To evaluate and improve our performance, we continually create assessments that measure the capability of our alumni and current students in this area.