The Mission of the LaSalle Academy Library program is to support the curriculum,
encourage inquiry-based learning, to provide students, teachers, and staff
with access to current, adequate, and appropriate information resources,
and to ensure that they are effective users of information as they question,
discover, explore, imagine and read.
The LaSalle Academy Library is an information resource center. It supports
the school's philosophy of instilling in students a life-long love of learning
through the inquiry process. The LaSalle Academy Library supports the ALA's
(American Library Association) Information Literacy Standards for student learning.
The library believes that "the student who is information literate, accesses
information efficiently and effectively,... evaluates information critically
and competently, [and]...uses information effectively and creatively..." (Information
Power: Building Partnerships for Learning, Chicago: ALA, 1998, pp. 8-9.)
The purposes and responsibility of the LaSalle Academy Library are to provide
a comprehensive collection of educational materials that supports the curriculum,
the philosophy, and the learning needs of the Academy Students. The library
supports the curriculum of the LaSalle Academy by providing primary resource
material and other resources not easily found at the local public libraries.
The LaSalle Academy Library aims to provide maximum accessibility to these
materials for students and teachers and to encourage growth in knowledge through
their use. The depth and breadth of materials aim to enable students to develop
intellectual integrity in forming judgments.
The selection of all library/media materials is the responsibility of the librarian
in collaboration with the faculty.
Selection is based on bibliographies and reviews from professional library
organizations and other media. Suggestions made by faculty through their
departments for materials related to courses taught in the curriculum receive
serious consideration and weight since one of the main goals of the LaSalle
Academy Library is to support the curriculum. Material consideration stresses
authorship authority, content accuracy, literary merit, and curriculum relevance.
In selecting materials for addition to the collection, consideration is given
to the need, contribution, and suitability of the material with regard to
the intellectual, social, psychological, and emotional development of the
students.