The staff of the Nimitz Library proudly serves the midshipmen and personnel of the United States Naval Academy, and as a cornerstone institution of the Academy’s motto, Ex Scientia Tridens, the Library fuels knowledge creation, and its distribution, for naval excellence.
The Library is a catalyst for naval excellence by, in part, collecting, organizing, and providing access to an expansive record of human thought. Librarians assess and acquire a variety of appropriate and available resources in formats that best meet the educational mission of the Academy.
This collection is first and foremost prioritized to support the academic inquiries and intellectual development of the Brigade of Midshipmen, i.e., the future leaders of the United States Navy and Marine Corps. Thus, curriculum development, learning theory, pedagogy, and students’ course assignments and research are requisite areas of development.
To the fullest extent possible, the collection also supports the research of the faculty of the Naval Academy. Cutting-edge research contributes to the overall body of scholarly literature and helps inform an instructor’s teaching judgments and priorities.
The Nimitz Library is a premier institution of seapower knowledge supporting the nation’s undergraduate academy for seapower education and officer accession. Thus, collecting in the niche yet vital areas of naval history, tradition, science, and engineering is critical and prioritized.
Intellectual and academic freedom have been cornerstones of academic thought and rigor for over a century in higher education in the United States. The Nimitz Library is dedicated to these core principles of building knowledge in its acquisition, promotion, and retention of scholarly materials.
Furthermore, Nimitz’s librarians are dedicated to promoting diversity and inclusivity in the Library’s collections. Thus, the librarians actively acquire resources from content creators that encompass the full spectrum of voices and perspectives available.
To guarantee equity of accessibility to the Library’s scholarly materials, staff adhere to accepted access standards for physical and online resources. Librarians routinely assess the creation and dissemination of information products so as to collect materials in multiple, accessible formats when needed or appropriate.
Librarians with subject matter expertise direct the Library’s collection efforts, and they are charged with fostering peer relationships within the Academy to better inform their decision making. These decisions address questions not only about building the collection but about managing it. Therefore, as is standard across the academic library community, Nimitz houses a living collection, which acknowledges obsolescence, usage, and space limitations.
All subject matter librarians’ collection initiatives are framed by this document. Yet, inherent in their professional judgement and execution, a degree of autonomy exists that may provide greater specificity at a disciplinary or departmental level, or for a cross-disciplinary major.
All academic libraries, including the Nimitz Library, have limited resources and cannot comprehensively collect materials in all subject areas. Therefore, the Library supplements its collection through a robust interlibrary borrowing/loan program in order to maximize access to resources. Additionally, the Nimitz Library seeks and welcomes partnerships with internal and external stakeholders to support the resource needs of Library constituencies.