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 about 50-80 show up each Sunday. Most of our members are elderly (do NOT put me in that category ... yet!), and our church has been in Sault Ste Marie for close to 200 years. We had a fire in 2000 that burned our beautiful 100-year-old building to the ground, but we rebuilt and reopened in 2003, and our membership is small but mighty! We've always had a library, started decades ago by a school librarian member, but the library had not been maintained for several years.
I recently began going through our stacks, culling many of the out-of-date, never read, non-fiction books. In checking the library cards in each book, about 90% have not been checked out since the library reopened in 2003. The most popular section is women's fiction, which is also very dated - romance, Amish, etc., but the rest of the books are virtually ignored. When I am done sorting through these books, I should have around 500 volumes of reference, nonfiction, and fiction.
Also, this is an adult library, the children's books are kept elsewhere, and we have never had an active online or a card catalog. The library is set up using Dewey decimal, but without any reference source, the books are harder to find. So, to check out a book, a member would remove the card from the book, sign and date it, and put it in a library (recipe) box. He/she would return the card to the book when it was returned. The library was never staffed.
So my plan (as a non-librarian, but an avid reader) is to make the library accessible to draw the congregation in. I am planning on creating a "bookstore" cataloging plan, using the categories found in Christian bookstores, using signage and colored dots for the different sections, which will be shelved alphabetically by author. I also plan to feature books in our church's monthly newsletter, have inserts in our weekly bulletin, speak about the library occasionally during service, and have a table of books available outside the sanctuary after service.
I'm curious if any of you have periodicals that you get each month. I have looked online and found a few, but I'm not sure if they would would fit with our elderly, mostly female, Caucasian, conservative congregation. (We do have several families in their 30s through 50s, but most everyone is over 70. We are a traditional church, with traditional services, uplifting music, a small Sunday School, an active women's association, and a smaller but devoted bunch of men.)
We have booklets like "Our Daily Bread" always available, but I'm looking for a few magazine subscriptions that would be less daunting than books, and would get people reading about living a faithful Christian life. I look forward to reading any input from you all. And thanks so much for reading this far, if you have. I appreciate it very much.
Judy Bawks
Replies
Hi Judy,
It sounds like you have a very creative plan to revive your library and I wish you well!
May I recommend the magazine called Christian History. It has wonderful color and black and white photos and one issue may feature a well-known Christian such as Billy Graham, or Martin Luther, Francis Asbury, etc. and other issues feature a point-in-time feature of Christian History, such as Faith in the Foxholes, Seeking hope amidst war's despair, covering the World Wars. Callings, Work and vocation in the history of the church, Debating Darwin, and one of my favorites: Jack At Home, C.S. Lewis and those who knew him best.
You can get a free one-year subscription by contacting ChristianHistoryMagazine.org or calling 1-(800) 468-0458.
God be with your in your wonderful endeavor,
Marlene Perling
Wonderful information Marlene! Thank you for the suggestion. I had not run across that magaine in my research and will look into it further!
My church subscribes to monthly periodicals that are published by our denomination. These periodicals are specific to certain age groups: Home Life (families) Senior Life (adults over 60) and a few more. These are circulated from racks in the hallway. The library does not record the arrival or the circulation of the periodicals.
Thank you Barb. I looked into Presbyterian periodicals and our church does subscribe to one. But the others are not quite what I was hoping for - they are very specialized in topic. But I do have a few magazines in mind to research further.