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Our Mission
The library’s mission and sevice responses were developed by the
library long-range planning committee in 2006. The mission and
service responses largely determine collection goals and selection priorities. The
library’s mission is the broadest statement of its collection goals. It
reads:
The mission of the Forsyth Public Library is to embrace
the community vision
of Forsyth and to provide a pleasant environment in which all residents
may access the materials they need for the pursuit of information,
education and entertainment. (Forsyth Public Library Long-range Plan, 2006)
The three selected service responses and their impact on the development
of the library’s collections are outlined below:
- General Information The library provides
a wide array of information through its print and non-print collections. Primarily
concerned with practical matters of everyday living, these collections
emphasize topics such as personal finance, health and fitness, home
economics/maintenance, nutrition/cooking, and arts and crafts. General
information collections emphasize a broad range, rather than depth
of topics, and stress practical life concerns rather than academic
or scholarly interests. Importance is placed on the currency
of information, with removal of dated materials playing as important
a role as the purchase of new ones.
- Lifelong Learning Lifelong
learning collections address an individual’s desire to pursue
independent study covering a broad spectrum of topics. Through analysis
of borrowing patterns, topics of greatest interest to a given community
of readers emerges. Although the library is unable to collect
deeply and/or retrospectively due to space and budget considerations,
building and maintaining quality collections are the primary
aims of the library. The library seeks to build a non-fiction collection
that is general and informative, and that reflects the best of
current and classical thinking (when appropriate). Among non-fiction
collections, topics such as history, religion, sociology, and natural
history are emphasized. The study of fictional works, “great
books” plays and poetry may also play an important role in an
individual’s lifelong learning plan. These require
the library to collect modern and traditional literary classics along
with guides to their study, and biographical information about their
authors.
- Current Topics and Titles The desire
for very current materials is most evident in the on-going demand for
best sellers and requests for titles highlighted in the popular media. Current
topics include fiction and non-fiction works, and both print and non-print
materials. To facilitate availability of the latest works by
high-demand fiction authors, the library subscribes to pre-selection
services that assure acquisition automatically upon publication. Care
is taken to assure integrity of information in the collection of current
materials. Currency and quality are not always synonymous; the library
will not knowingly purchase materials that make unfounded claims to
cure disease or that pose a potential threat to readers through suggesting
illegal courses of action or engaging in dangerous health practices. The
library will not submit to the pressure of popularity or publicity
when it comes to purchasing materials containing unsubstantiated claims. A
Current Topics collection encompasses the library’s subscriptions
to current periodicals, newspapers and non-print media such as
the dvd collection and online databases.
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