The following provide the overall structure for building our general collections and meeting our collection goals:

• Carleton College Mission Statement
• Carleton 2033: Liberal Arts in Action
• Gould Library Mission, Vision and Values Statements
• American Libraries Association Bill of Rights and accompanying statements and or interpretations including, but not limited to:
  • Access to Digital Resources and Services
  • Diverse Collections
  • Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
  • Freedom to Read
  • Freedom to View
  • Intellectual Freedom Issues for Academic Libraries
• Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Diversity Standards: Cultural Competencies for Academic Libraries including Standard 4: "Librarians and library staff shall develop collections and provide programs and services that are inclusive of the needs of all persons in the community the library serves."
• ACRL Statement of Academic Freedom

• Support the College's diverse programs of teaching and learning.
• Accelerate teaching, learning and scholarship through responsive collections that support and anticipate information needs of the Carleton community.
• Provide content and access which reflects and responds to our diverse community and the interdisciplinary nature of the curriculum.
• Remove barriers to information by ensuring the content provided is accessible to all who need it. See Carleton's Philosophy Statement on Accessibility.
• Increase the impact and reach of emerging scholarly communication models, particularly Open Access initiatives by actively supporting and advancing open and sustainable models for knowledge sharing and publishing.

• Implement strategic approaches that effectively steward the Library's collection budget to provide information resources and content.

• Participate in our library consortia arrangements and interlibrary loan agreements to extend the range of materials available to the Carleton community.