Recently, a group of library friends and I gave some thought to the terms we us in the church library world. All of us are experiencing major changes in our church families.
- These changes are gradually introduced or suddenly thrown at us as church members.
- We rarely get to give any type of input.
- I am seeing such changes in my own church family. One that has been gradually changed is moving from Sunday School classes to Sunday Morning and weekday Groups.
- Much research by a variety of church related researchers reported the realization that fewer church leaders use school models for organizing church families.
- And research shows that very high percentages of people who give their reasons for joining a church and/or continuing to participate in a church are those who are active participants in groups. Many lead pastors now highly encourage their church members to choose group particiation over worship participation.
For many years now we have talked about church libraries considering names for the libraries to align with the format of titles in the church. But what about the titles of the various aspects of library ministry? For many, many years we have categorized library work with the following titles: Administration, Collection Development, Classification & Circulation, and Promotion.
Some of you may already be using different terms that have enabled you to engage more people to serve in the library. These terms are rather internal to the team than terms that are used beyond the team. Let's grapple with library team work categories. On page 21 of the free book Lifeway Pdf CLMIS2013.pdf you will find a chart that explains these categories.
Your thoughts and experience?
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