From Stephanie Richardson
I am just getting started with revitalizing my church's library. It is a beautiful space, but for years has been a dumping ground for books that people want to get rid of - resulting in a collection of books that no one wants to read. My first step will be a huge purge of the collection and start obtaining books that are relevant to our congregation.
I am looking for help with several specific things. I realize that many of these questions are very broad and I appreciate any wisdom and insight you can share with me.
1) Does anyone have a mission or vision statement their church library that they could share? How about written guidelines for purging old or obtaining new books? I plan to work closely with the pastors for advice as I build our collection, but I would like to have a process in place that doesn't require them to approve every book (they don't have time for that!). I fortunately have a couple thousand dollars to start with, so I am very excited to start building a great collection.
2) For those of you that use an online catelogue system, what do you love/hate about the system you use. I have looked at TinyCat, but I am a little confused about how to shelve my books in a way that makes them easy to find physically while using the TinyCat system. (I haven't spent a lot of time studying it, so maybe I've just missed it). Other than TinyCat, what else is out there?
3) What activities and/or programs has gotten your church interested in the library? I am hoping to start some programs that engage kids and encourage adults to put down their phone and pick up a book. :)
4) Other than this website, are there any other great resources/communities that I should connect with as I am working on this ministry?
Thank you all!
Grace and Peace,
Stephanie Richardson
Replies
When I became the librarian for my church, I switched to Libib Pro. It's not fancy and has very few bells & whistles, but it does what I need it to do and it's not expensive.
Concerning your first & fourth points, please look for my somewhat lengthy reply to Babs. The Facebook group I've mentioned in it addresses those.
Jeana Voss
Southcrest Librarian
Re: choosing new books
As we want the support of our church staff and the different ministries, I am connecting with the pastor to keep current on his sermon series and his future goals. I will have a curated section of books and authors that he recommends.
I also have talked with all of the other ministries, establishing a relationship that lets them know the Library wants to support their ministries and welcomes any book suggestions that they would like to have available in the library. Ex. Preschool teachers wanted board books about Jesus--a Women's Event occurs this month where we will have a display table of recently published books which the Women's minister has recommended--they can check them out at the event.
Also, I'm intentionally having conversations with the book lovers in our church and listening for recommendations--from all age groups--children, singles, married, women, men, senior adults. I'm learning that we need to fit our holdings to the interests and needs of our individual church.
Our library has also been working on revitalization for over a year now. Our shelves are full to overflowing, and we want to create an environment that is less cluttered, making it easier for our members to find what they are looking for. We want to reduce the number of holdings and then rebuild with meaningful quality items. Some things we have done:
1. Pulled all "secular" books on topics which could be found at the public library
2. Pulled all of our CDs-to be shared with church members, other churches, etc
3. Pulled any duplicate books which were not being checked out
4. As we re-shelve books, we look in that area for anything that appears to be old or out-dated.
5. We also take a "visual walk" through our shelves, looking for books whose pages are brown, indicating they've been in the library for a very long time. Depending on the genre, we decide if the book still has value, may need a newer edition, or needs to be discarded.
6. We are also curating some collections on topics which have wide appeal, such as Family Life, New Believers (per pastor's request), Grief, Special Needs, Marriage, Aging and Caretaking, etc. We are still maintaining the Dewey Decimal system and can move books in and out of those shelf locations.
Our little library team consists of those who are not trained librarians but love books and want the library to be a rich resource for our church members. Our methods come from common sense more than training, but we have a vision and a passion to bring something new and fresh to our library.
Stephanie,
Great question! We recently closed our library space in anticipation of more space in a new building. We purged most of those "dumped" books (free give away followed by donation). I will follow this thread to learn your "new" method of chosing/discerning books! Keep reading :)