Q&A

Publisher discounts? Wish-list for library purchases?

Hello everyone,

I am working to revitalize our church's library and will soon be purchasing a lot of new books to fill our shelves. I was wondering if any of you have ever had any success with asking publishers for a church library discount if you pur

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Mission Trips

In thinking about the summer, we will have multiple teams going to Honduras for mission trips.  I would like to build up our small selection of books about missions. As we are reducing the number of holdings in our library and are desiring to have th

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Christian Fiction for men

Looking for recommendations for Christian fiction novels for men.

Thanks!

First Baptist Church, Kingsport, TN

 

Jonna Bridgeman replied:

All of Charles Martin's books would be good. 

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DVD

We have purged our CD collection, but hesitated letting go of all DVDs. We wanted to determine if there was any demand for them. 
Not one has been checked out since then! 
I'm wondering if other smaller libraries are keeping these, are they being check

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Recommended Books about United States Presidents?

Great day to share titles of books about United States Presidents. What do you have in your church's collection?

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Purging Christian Fiction

Our library has a long wall of shelves packed with Christian novels. We are in the Revitalization stage and are letting go of many holdings in order to have more uncluttered shelves with quality materials.  Many of these Christian fiction books are s

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How Millennials and Gen Z Are Driving a Bible Reading Comeback

Have you seen the November 2025 Barna report titled about this comback? Click here to read the report. You will need to click in the blank space following the introduction if you do not see the graphics.

I wonder how many of our churches/Parishes/Sy

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Highly Recommended Practical Real-Life Books

 Dr. Paul T. Jackson asked me to post the following as a discussion starter. What would you add.

Here’s a focused starter list of practical, everyday-life books that many church libraries find helpful for patrons—resources that support people facing

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How Millennials and Gen Z are Driving a Bible Reading Comeback

The Barna research team has discovered interesting results in regard to adult Bible reading. Click here to read the article. They use the words "spike" and "surge" in this article which I find fascinating and curious for us.

Let's read this article t

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Purging Books Today

How do librarians purge books? I know this has been discussed before, but as newer books are becoming increasingly "edgy," should we be keeping some of the older "tried & true" and if so, what criteria could we use to make our decisions? 

Denise Robe

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Libraries that Serve Seminary Cohorts that Meet in the Building

My church is the location of Southeastern Baptist Seminary student cohorts. This is the third year, the leader of these cohorts asked the Enrichment Center Team to include the textbooks for a course that starts August 18. He asked us to add 16 books

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E-Book Articles and Discussions for Today

In February 2025, Glenn McKowen updated his three eBook articles for us. You will find links here to these 3 articles for us to continue these discussions.

E-books: the Ministry

E-books: the Process

E-books: the Cost

 Jump in with your questions and

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Beginning a Book Collection?

Gloria Stevens has a question:

Our pastor is interested in setting up a book stall. Does anyone have an idea about beginning a book collection? Our library books are mostly really old.  

Gloria

 

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Are Paperback Books Going Away?

Yesterday, I heard that publishers are transitioning to hardback books without paperbooks. Have you heard anything about that? I am noticing that hardbacks right now are sometimes almost the same price as the paperbacks. And I also notice new books a

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Graphic Novels for Junior Readers?

Roxy Klassen requests:

We are trying to build a Graphic Novel section for Junior Readers. Does anyone have any good suggestions for Christian Graphic Novels besides these? 
ICorrie Ten Boom 
The Hiding Place: (A Graphic Novel) Ages 8-12, Full Color, Il

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The future of DVDs and Audiobooks

Babs Harris has the following question:

Due to the slow down after Covid and a loss of workers, our library now has a backlog of ordered and paid for DVDs (mostly preschool) to catalog. 
Do we spend the time to enter these into the catalog when so few

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Dependable Sources to Help us Select Books and DVDs for Our Churches

Even though we have had this discussion in previous years, let's start a new list of dependable sources to help with selection. Chances are what we listed a few years ago may no longer be available. AND new sources are worth our consideration. 

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Purchasing Books and DVDs?

Share with us your favorite sources for library books and DVDs. Even if you see your sources mentioned by others before you do, go ahead and add to our list in this discussion.

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Revitalizing a Church Library

From Judy Bawks

Hello all! I am a 70-year-old life-long member of a Presbyterian Church in the U.P. of Michigan. Here's some background of our church: Our church membership has dwindled over the years, and we now have a membership of under 200, and a

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Inventory—What’s First?

We need to do an inventory but know that there are a LOT of books which have been checked out for extended periods of time (possibly as long ago as Covid 2020).  We do stamp our books with a 2 week return date, but do not stress this. 

We are ponderin

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