The Scottsdale Community College Library opened in 1972 with a collection of 20,000 volumes. The Library building was dedicated on April 16, 1973, and was designed to support a future anticipated enrollment of 10,000 students. Because of this, the Library’s opening collection did not fill the shelves, and the Library appeared to be under-stocked. There was an immediate clamor on the part of students for a budget increase beyond the $15,000 per year which had been allocated to the Library for books and services. Instead, to offset any deficiencies in the collection, SCC arranged to receive interlibrary loan support from Arizona State University’s library. In the years since the SCC Library opened, it has grown to include multiple classrooms and a collection of over 32,000+ volumes, 62 plus print periodical subscriptions, and numerous online resources, including ebooks and 169 databases (31 of these SCC specific) full-text periodical databases. Additionally, SCC students, faculty and staff have reciprocal borrowing privileges with the other Maricopa Community Colleges.
The SCC Library's physical collection is located at the main campus on Chaparral Road. The MCCCD Library’s holdings of print and electronic resources are searchable from any computer with Internet access. Subscription databases, eBooks, and many other electronic resources are accessible from both on and off-campus to enrolled students, faculty and staff through the Library’s web page.
The SCC Library collection emphasizes those subject areas most directly related to the SCC curriculum, including art, music, film, theater, history, psychology, language and literature, biology, nursing, culinary arts, Native American issues, engineering, forensic science, and social sciences. Areas of the collection will evolve to support the curriculum and SCC’s educational and workforce programs and areas of study.
A cooperative relationship exists among the MCCCD libraries. Students may request needed materials from any of the other libraries. Available resources are delivered between campuses by courier service to the community college library designated by the requestor. In making selection decisions, Library Faculty may take into account the number of copies already available within MCCCD.
Interlibrary loan is the process by which materials from one library are made available to another library for use by their patrons. At SCC, interlibrary loan is available for students, staff, and faculty. In addition to MCCCD intercampus loans described above, the SCC Library also supports a broader based interlibrary loan system. In cooperation with area public libraries, other local academic libraries, the Maricopa County and Arizona State libraries, and the OCLC system of nationwide libraries, materials which are unavailable may be borrowed. In return, the SCC Library makes its resources available to other libraries. In making interlibrary loan requests, copyright law, ALA's interlibrary loan code, and the policies of the lending institution will be considered. Interlibrary loan requests are regularly reviewed to see if demand and availability warrants the purchase of a particular title or additional materials on a high demand topic for the SCC Library.
