It is the mission of the Franklin Trask Library to serve the faculty, students, and staff of Andover Newton Theological School as well as the larger academic and pastoral community. To fulfill its task, the Library must build and maintain a collection of materials which supports the academic course work as well as the research and reference needs of our clientele.
Goals and Objectives of the Franklin Trask Library
The Franklin Trask Library plays a unique and essential role in the educational and research programs of Andover Newton Theological School. Library collections are created to respond to the actual and anticipated demands of users of those collections. These goals provide the guidelines for both collection development and assessment. They also serve to identify whether the collection has been managed to respond satisfactorily and responsibly to the mission of the Library. In order to fulfill its mission the Library has established the following general goals:
- The Library shall provide its constituency with the religious and theological materials of the traditional disciplines of the past and present. These materials must be representative of the diversity to be found within religious, theological and non-religious subject areas in retrospective as well as current thought. They should be ecumenical in nature and span the range of media available.
- The Library shall provide materials needed to support the basic degree programs of the school.
- The Library shall provide materials that permit its constituency to undertake research in the subjects for the writing of essays, dissertations, and projects.
- The Library shall provide materials for in-depth study where their studies and reflections have stimulated users to pursue topics of a particular interest not required by the curriculum.
- The Library shall provide materials that will assist users in their religious and professional growth and development. It shall provide the expertise and training necessary to fully utilize the resources available to all its users.