Mission, Vision, Values
Mission
Occupying one room with 1,000 books at 9 University Place, the Bryson Library opened in 1887 in support of the Kitchen Garden Association (later called the Industrial Education Association) founded by Grace Hoadley Dodge, whose extraordinary vision and generosity led to the establishment of New York College for the Training of Teachers. By 1924, a new library occupied Russell Hall on the expanded 120th Street campus. The former Milbank Memorial Library became the Gottesman Libraries, complete with three fully renovated floors and state-of-the-art learning theater, thanks to generous gifts by Ruth Gottesman and Camilla and George Smith to Teachers College, whose affiliation with Columbia College (now Columbia University) dates from 1889, and whose relationship fosters mutually beneficial resource sharing and growth.
The Gottesman Libraries serves as the education library of the university. We collect, maintain, make accessible, and teach research resources in education, psychology, and the applied health sciences – resources, including many special collections, that are attuned to the needs of our graduate students, faculty, and staff, and the wider community of researchers and scholars in pursuit of historical inquiry.
Concentrating on pedagogical research, curriculum and children’s literature, and the history of our institution, we offer significant breadth and depth of perspective, with education broadly inspired by the College’s great practitioners and philosophers, among them John Dewey, who saw it as a social function, direction, and growth for the greater common good.
Vision
We aspire to excellence in advancing and sharing transformative knowledge to develop informed and engaged thinkers and leaders in the educational, psychological, and health professions. We envision the library, beyond walls, as heart and soul for the exchange of thoughts and ideas that inform a smarter, healthier, and more equitable world enlightened by history, leadership, and innovation.
Values
- Educational equity: We provide a welcoming, fair, respectful, inclusive, and accessible environment for our users, as we nurture diversity of thought and experience and embrace wide-ranging needs in teaching, learning, and research.
- Dedicated service: We are committed to the timely and expert provision and promotion of information, research, and educational outreach to grow a strong, open, and reflective community of learners, teachers, and scholars through inquiry, discovery, flexibility, and creative opportunity.
- Academic collegiality: We encourage congeniality and cooperation between our colleagues, uniting ourselves with shared goals and objectives in academic librarianship of distinction.
- Engaged collaboration: We partner with members and affiliated members in the development and delivery of quality resources and services that reflect integrity in building upon our strengths while looking eagerly to the future.
- Smart innovation: We seek new, inspiring, and integrated ways of fulfilling our mission, with a deep commitment to our community and the continuing stewardship of library collections and technology that further scholarship and model the highest professional standard.
