The mission of the Pennsylvania Institute of Technology is Student Success.
The College provides a supportive environment to enable committed students to succeed by offering the best collegiate education for career advancement, transfer opportunities, and personal growth.
ACRL is the source that the higher education community looks to for standards, guidelines, and frameworks on academic libraries. ACRL develops standards, guidelines, and frameworks to help libraries, academic institutions, and accrediting agencies understand the components of an excellent library. These standards, guidelines, frameworks, and model statements are reviewed and updated by the membership on a regular basis. The ACRL Guide to Policies and Procedures contains complete information on the creation and review of ACRL standards, guidelines, and frameworks.
The following conditions apply to the use of the Pennsylvania Institute of Technology's Library electronic resources. To ensure the legal and ethical use of these resources, please read and comply with these conditions.
The Library, a service of the Pennsylvania Institute of Technology (P.I.T.), subscribes to a variety of databases, full-text journal collections, and other resources or services for which the college contracted with a publisher or vendor to receive. Licensing restrictions required by publishers and/or vendors who produce electronic resources or services require limiting the access to the resources and/or services to authorized users.
Violation of terms of the license agreement could result in the cancelation of the service for the entire College.
Authorized users may use electronic resources solely for scholarly, research, or educational purposes. Authorized users consist of currently registered students, alumni (restricted use – see below), and currently employed team members and faculty of P.I.T. Remote access to resources is limited to authorized users. The Library is required to restrict access to authorized users by verifying usernames and passwords, or by restricting access to IP (internet protocol) addresses.
Giving unauthorized users access to usernames, passwords or other identifying information is a violation of the publisher-library agreements and may result in disciplinary or legal action. Redistribution of copyrighted, electronic resources to unauthorized users is also prohibited, including printouts. P.I.T. reserves the right to terminate electronic services to users who repeatedly infringe upon the rights of copyright owners.
PIT library materials designated for circulation may be checked out by students, faculty, and staff using their PIT ID cards. Borrowers are responsible for materials checked out in their names.
If unsure of an item’s location, a patron should use the “Library Search” feature on the website and note the location, call number, and title. The patron should take that information to the Information Desk. The patron will either be directed to a location in the stacks or library personnel will retrieve the material.
Confidentiality of Library Records
Under Pennsylvania law, 24 P.S. §4428, library records relating to an individual patron’s use of the library and its resources are confidential.
Types of Materials Available
Borrowing Privileges by Patron Category
Placing Holds
This service is available to PIT faculty, students, and staff. Placing a hold on a book or other library resource that is currently checked out allows the patron to join the waitlist to borrow it when it becomes available. Hold last for 5 business days after the item is returned to the library and available for checkout. Patrons may cancel holds at anytime, and may place as many holds on books as they wish, but multiple holds cannot be placed on the same item in order to check it out for consecutive loan periods.
Fines, Fees, and Blocks
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Material Type |
Fine/Fee/Block |
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Reserves |
N/A |
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Regularly circulating materials |
Lost item charges and account block 60 days after last due date |
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Hotspots |
Lost item charges and account block 60 days after last due date |
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Fines begin to accumulate on the first day or the first hour after an item is overdue.
Fines and Fees Timeline
Overdue Notices
Overdue notices are sent to patrons via their PIT email account and via Canvas at intervals of 1, 10, and 20 days after the due date. At 60 days after the due date, the item is considered lost. Please see the Fines and Fee Timeline detailed above for more information about lost items.
Damaged Items
Return of materials in a damaged condition will be treated as “lost,” and the borrower will be subject to the Fines and Fees Timeline detailed above. The library does not accept replacement copies in lieu of payment.
Claims Returned
Upon request, library personnel will search the stacks for material that a patron believes has been returned. The material will remain on the patron’s record pending the search. If found, the item and associated overdue or lost charges will be removed from the patron’s record. If not found, the patron will be assessed a lost item charge.
The Collection Development policy states the principles and guidelines that the Pennsylvania Institute of Technology Library follows in the selection, acquisition, and management of all Library resources. The purpose of the policy is to provide consistency among the persons responsible for collection development and transparency for operational decisions.
The Pennsylvania Institute of Technology Library supports the American Library Association's (ALA) Library Bill Of Rights and the Freedom to Read Statement, and the “Intellectual Freedom Principles for Academic Libraries.” The Library has adopted sections of the Library Bill of Rights applicable to collection development as approved by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Board of Directors. The general principles set forth in the Library Bill of Rights form an indispensable framework for building collections, services, and policies that serve the entire academic community.
The primary subject areas collected are those that serve to support the instructional, research, and information needs of the school community. Materials are organized by discipline and subject topics, via the Library of Congress classification system (LOC). The main language of the collection is English.
Electronic Resources include, but are not limited to, electronic serials or collections of serials; online bibliographic or numeric databases; electronic reference materials; electronic monographs or collections of monographs. Traditional selection criteria apply to electronic resources. However, due to the unique nature of electronic resources, special criteria need also be applied.
Print and electronic resources must be relevant and appropriate to a significant segment of the Libraries' users, meet current academic and research needs, and support the Library and PIT's mission statements. Resources considered for acquisition and/or inclusion into the collection should meet most if not all of the following guidelines:
Affordability
Access by Proxy
No requirements for additional or special hardware or software, other than what is freely available and widely used
Compatibility across different platforms (PC, Mac, etc.)
Full-text availability in PDF and/or HTML
Trial period available for review of the resource prior to purchase decision
Value-added enhancements and/or improved access, such as:
Availability independent of time or location
Greater functionality, including multiple search indexes
More extensive content
More up-to-date content
User experience, interface, and navigation should be user-friendly and provide assistance to the user by prompts and menus, context or function-specific help screens, or tutorials.
Vendor reliability as to the content, business practices, customer and technical support, documentation, and training, and notification of content and format changes.
Availability of Counting Electronic Usage of Networked Electronic Resources (COUNTER) compliant usage data
Acceptable license terms
o No Digital Rights Management (DRM), preferred
o Unlimited simultaneous users preferred
o Perpetual access preferred
Compliant with ADA guidelines and standards.
The Library will negotiate the best possible license with each vendor. Each resource may have different terms and not all preferences may be met. In general, the vendor should provide a standard agreement that describes the terms of the license in easy-to-understand and explicit language. Licenses should include, but are not limited to:
Broad definitions of authorized users including faculty, students, and staff
Warranties that the licensor has the right and authority to license the material.
Continuous service and scheduled downtime clause.
Guaranteed anonymity of the users and confidentiality of their information.
The Library reserves the right to add or remove content at its discretion, and in accordance with this policy.
Resources are reviewed and reassessed before renewal. A resource may be withdrawn from the collection when:
The resource no longer supports the curriculum and/or research needs of the school
The resource is no longer available or maintained.
The resource is no longer reliable or relevant.
The resource overlaps or duplicates material in another resource that provides more comprehensive coverage of the subject.
The information is available in a more suitable format.
Usage or circulation statistics indicate a declining level of interest.
Cost is not commensurate with usage.
The current product becomes obsolete or damaged.
Budget reductions force cancelation of products.
