Faculty Services

The librarians at HarperCollege work proactively to build a strong collection of core materials that meet your teaching and research needs and support the needs of the students and the community. The library's collection is always evolving with approximately 5,000 new acquisitions each year and many withdrawals. The book collection stands 110,000 volumes strong, with additional access to over 10,000 journal subscriptions online and approximately 500 journal subscriptions in print.

As Harper College teaching faculty, you play a vital role in purchasing supplemental materials to support the curriculum you teach. Your expertise and awareness of cutting-edge issues, leading scholars and department goals is key to developing a robust collection that serves our students. Together the librarians and teaching faculty work toward a common goal of successful student learning and support for faculty research.

For your convenience, this section supplies many useful ordering forms, links to the catalogs and websites for many publishers, trial databases, up to date news on our collection, statistics, and links to your faculty liaison.

The acquisition, management and maintenance of the Library's collection is a primary function of the library's mission to "provide resources that best support and enhance the institutional mission of William Rainey Harper College. The goal of the Collection Development department is to ensure that collection development activities are attuned to that mission.

You can submit orders online, via our online ordering form. Your division's faculty liaison is available to assist you in the ordering process.

The Library Liaison program has been established to pair a librarian with each division. Your librarian will collaborate with your division on selection and maintenance of the library collection by discipline.

Liaisons are encouraged to attend semester orientations and scheduled departmental meetings as needed, or invite faculty for meetings in the library. Upon request, liaisons can meet with individual faculty members to review your discipline areas. Once a semester, liaisons will keep you informed on new programs, acquisitions, resources, and services relevant to your discipline areas.

Your liaisons encourage you to do your part in the collection development program. New additions to the collection are added as old and outdated resources are weeded out on an on-going basis. Share your knowledge on the latest resources available. Your input greatly influence the selections to keep the Harper Collection up to date. Your liaisons will keep you informed about ordering procedures such as our Online Ordering Form and monitor the available funds allocated in your subject area.