Pearl A. Wanamaker (TCC) Library Collection Development Policy: Home

The mission of the Pearl A. Wanamaker Library is to teach and promote information literacy, collect and provide access to relevant and diverse academic resources, and provide a welcoming, supportive environment for students, faculty, and staff.

Central to the core mission of the Library is the quality and accessibility of its collection. Written by the Faculty Librarians, the collection development policy gives us a concrete set of objectives and procedures to assure that we effectively allocate our resources towards a useful, high quality, collection. In order to maintain a collection, which responds to the changing needs of a dynamic institution, this policy will periodically be evaluated and revised.

At the broadest level, the objectives of collection development at the Pearl A. Wanamaker Library are to:

1. Support the College's strategic plan as approved by the Board of Trustees
2. Support the mission and program outcomes of the Library
3. Provide students and faculty easy access to materials that support teaching and learning 
4. Represent diverse opinions and ideas
5. Support the overall development of students by offering resources that are relevant and of interest to the TCC community, which includes diverse racial, ethnic, cultural, social, and economic backgrounds

The TCC Library boldly pursues a collection that reflects current curricular needs, as well as current information trends. The Library strongly adheres to the “just-in-time” model of collection development, in which acquisition is based on a known need with a focus on access, rather than on a perceived need with a focus on holdings (as in the “just-in-case “model). As our collection policy is aligned with the current curriculum, it is not our aim to encompass the whole universe of knowledge in our library. We acknowledge that there may be subject areas in the print collection that receive little or no coverage. The Library strives to support a vital print collection while developing an increasingly robust digital collection. 

The Pearl A. Wanamaker Library collection consists of over 30,000 print volumes, 147,000 e-books, and 37 print periodical titles. In addition, the Library currently subscribes to 58 databases, which contain full-text access to journal articles, reference resources or streaming film (as of April 2021).

The Pearl A. Wanamaker Library adheres to the American Library Association’s Bill of Rights, Freedom to Read Statement,  Intellectual Freedom Principles for Academic Libraries, as well as the ACRL Diversity Standards.

The TCC Library is committed to supporting Tacoma Community College’s core theme of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.

As such, the Library endeavors to develop a collection that champions equity, reflects the diverse experiences of our community, and fosters the inclusion of historically marginalized people, topics, and events.

Some of the materials within the TCC Library’s collection were produced in earlier times. As such, Library users will likely encounter materials that include stereotypic and offensive portrayals of people, and colonialist descriptions of historic events. 

The Librarians at TCC choose to retain these materials because they are either seminal works or are important in the study of human culture and society.  Such materials should be viewed within the historical, political, social, and cultural contexts of the time in which they were created.  

Providing access to these materials does not endorse any attitudes, prejudices, or behaviors depicted, but aligns with Tacoma Community College’s core theme of Cultivating Exceptional Learning.