Hello!
I am wondering if anyone has chosen to include any secular books in their libraries, and if so, what is the procedure that you followed?
Our pastor has highly recommended a secular book, written by a non-christian author. He believes the content is incredibly valuable.
We will be choosing to include it in our circulation, and will likely have more to follow, but we just want to make sure we're doing it well and with sensitivity.
Signage? Labels? What would you recommend?
Thank you!
Amber
Replies
Before answering your question, I'm wondering whether you have a working definition of secular. We have lots of books in our library on ethical issues which may be considered secular depending on your defintion. They are placed on the shelves according to the Dewey Decimal system and searchable through our online catalog (we use Opals) by subject, title, or author. We are a Baptist church, but not Southern Baptist..
I believe our definition is a book that is not specifically religious in nature, and also not written by a Christian author, but a specific definition is something I have yet to discuss with our pastor.
Let's revisit secular books. We have secular books in our collection, but we have weeded out a high percentage that carried over from the previous librarians. The remaining ones deal with leadership, gardening, cookbooks, history, etc. We use Dewey so we place them according to the book, A Classification System for Church Libraries. We do not label them as "secular." As we are running out of shelf space, the fist places we weed incules secular books.
Are we the only ones who have secular books?
Our church library does not include secular books. To stay withing budget and space constraints, I make an effort to focus on materials that cannot be obtained for free elsewhere. Our region has a robust public library system and secular books mentioned or recommended by our pastors (for example, Jonathan Haidt's "The Anxious Generation") are usually so easily accessible both in the physical libraries and the public library system app that it's unnecessary to own a copy in our own building. In the same way, I don't include secular or even extremely popular children's literature series (most families have The Chronicles of Narnia anyway, and every public library owns them).
Beyond issues of space and budget, it's important to us that the items in the collection support the doctrines of the church and don't cause confusion for believers in earlier stages of their walk. It's simpler for everyone if we don't include items that need to be qualified, you know? This is also part of the reason that we don't have fiction beyond the youth collection.
GREAT point, Melanie!