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CLB Library / About the Library / Mission and History

Library's Mission and History

Mission

The Corriher-Linn-Black Library serves as an active agent to enable its users to become self-directed, life-long learners. The Library, as the information hub for the College and a community resource, provides a diverse population of students, faculty, staff, and community borrowers on-site and electronic access to information resources in a variety of formats on campus, in the Salisbury/Rowan community, and throughout the nation and the world.

Library services support and enrich academic curricula programs, and activities, while providing Catawba students with opportunities for individual growth and development within the context of a liberal education.


The Library strives:

  • To acquire, organize, and maintain a collection in a variety of formats sufficient to support present and developing curricular programs and to reflect the educational mission of the college.
  • To provide effective on-site and electronic access information resources on campus and in the Salisbury/Rowan Community as well as electronic access to external information resources.
  • To provide a qualified, services-oriented staff.
  • To provide instruction to empower the college community to use the campus, community, and external information resources to best advantage and to integrate emerging technologies into instruction.
  • To provide adequate facilities and equipment to maximize effective use of the library.
  • To provide library users with the opportunity to explore emerging information technologies.

History

The Corriher-Linn-Black Library first opened for use in November 1953 and is named in memory of Lotan Corriher, Joseph Linn, and Dr. Oscar Black. The library reopened after its renovation in January 2008. The Catawba Library has been a selective depository for U.S. Government documents since the 1890's and N.C. Government documents since 1995. In July 2000, the library became a full depository for N.C. Government documents. In Spring 2013, the library began using OCLC's Worldshare Management system as its integrated library management system and OCLC's Worldcat Local as its catalog.