Q&A

Filing System for Library Purchasing Receipts

Here's a twist on our filing system discussion. Let’s get specific about our filing systems.

How do you file purchasing receipts for the library? How long to do you keep these receipt files?

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Communicating with Church Staff Ministers and Pastors

The start of a new church year is a great time to initiate or strengthen relationships with church staff ministers and pastors. How are you approaching that this year? Let’s share our stories.

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Ebooks

We have not grappled with eBooks in awhile. The pastor of one of our new members wants eBooks in the collection. Those of you who have experience with having eBooks in your church’s collection: would you share your recommendations as well as experien

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Books for Middle School Readers

Georgina Businaro recently put together a partical list of books her church's library provides for middle schoolers. Every church library is unique so keep in mind that each of us must use our selection policy to determine what we add to the collecti

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Filing System for a Church Library?

We have a new member who is revitalizing a church library. She wants to know what you use as a filing system for your needs. Do you use administration, collection development, promotion, and cataloging as the main categories with sub-categories? Or a

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Collection Development: New Believers

One of our members is searching for a list of recommended books for new believers. If each of us replies with one or two recommendations, we will all see a minimum of 2000 recommendations. We often do not participate in these listings because we don'

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2024 Transition: Serving Ministries in the New Church Year

Now is a great time to contact your age group ministers, women’s ministers, men’s ministers, and other ministers to discuss how the church library can assist their plans for the new ministry year. A common question for all of them involves their disc

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2024 Transitions: Inventory

How do you approach the inventory task? For our growing number of new librarians joining the CLN, share your inventory tips whether you conduct the inventory manually or with software. 

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July 4 Ideas

What did you do this year for your July display and July 4 activities? Photo?

Do you have books related to July 4 that you displayed yesterday? New titles to recommend?

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Our Annual Budget Preparation Discussion

For many of our church or synagogue families, the Finance Committee has started the process to prepare the budget for the next year. Of course, many other churches start their budget process during other months. Let’s discuss best practices for prepa

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Fathers Day

After a quick CLN search, I'm finding no discussions about Fathers Day. We do have photos of bulletin boards and displays. What about Fathers Day in our churches today? Have you found current books about fatherhood to recommend to the rest of us? Fro

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Programs to create newsletters?

I'm interested in learning the best program to use for creating quarterly, bimonthly, or monthly newsletters both digital and print? Pros and cons?Thank you for your help!

Sabrina Jaye

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Memorial Day 2024

Blessings to all as we remember our heroes who gave us the freedom we enjoy today. Did you do something through the library to recognize these heroes in your church or beyond?

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Vacation Bible School 2024

If your church is having Vacation Bible School this summer, what will the Library Team do during each day?

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Alabama Authors

Barbara Rodgers asks the following:

My church is located in Alabama and I want to create a seperate space to shelve books by Alabama authors. Where can I find a collated list of books by Alabama authors? Of course I am only interested in the titles t

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Summer 2024 Plans?

What are your plans for this summer to engage children, youth, and/or adults in using the library collection? We have LOTS of summer idea posts on the CLN so search for those posts using key words like “summer plans” or “summer reading”.

Bob Haskins

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Shelving Bible-based Materials

Sabrina J has a question about shelving.

Our church library collection of over 12k items was given away (except for reference material) several years ago so the library would close. We have a new much smaller spot as well. Looking back, we see how th

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Crucial Ideas for a New Library

One of our new Church Librarians Network members lives in the Nashville area, Lydia Neeley. She and her pastor are seriously talking about a vision for revitalizing the library in their church. She came to our Middle Tennessee librarians gathering on

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Building a Library with Zero Budget

During the April 20, 2024 Middle Tennessee Church Librarians Ministry Network gathering, we shared lots of great ideas for funding sources. What do you suggest?

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Promotion Ideas to Get More Library Users?

During the middle Tennessee Church Librarians Network gathering on April 20, 2024 we shared all kinds of ideas with each other. What are you doing to attract new users?

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