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E-books: The Ministry [Revised 2025]
E-books: The Ministry [Revised 2025]
by Glenn McEowen
This article discusses how e-books[1] provide a unique ministry through the church library. After several years of providing this service, our library and others have discovered it as a ministry beyond what we ever imagined.
What sets the e-book ministry apart?
- This ministry is essential. So, why should a church library make the investment when our members can check out e-books from other libraries (the public library, for example)? Like our print books, our church libraries can uniquely provide an e-book collection that can be TRUSTED! The theology is sound, the world view matches our church's, and entertainment materials are morally appropriate. Public libraries are rarely permitted to maintain a narrow perspective.
- This ministry is private. It has the potential to serve intimate concerns of our members in ways we may never know. Imagine the embarrassment of checking out print titles on addiction, divorce, prnography, etc. at the checkout desk. With e-books no one else, not even the librarian, is involved. While we may never know, privacy may be the greatest ministry tool our libraries can offer.
3. This ministry is not bound by four walls and church attendance.
A. Members who travel on business or vacation
B. Members away from home: college students, military, missionaries
C. Members who cannot visit during "normal" library hours: shift and weekend worker
D. Hospital patients and nursing home residents
E. During the coronavirus shutdowns, our e-books ministry was booming
4. The ministry uses technology that works for readers who may not handle print materials well.
A. Font sizes can be enlarged to help aging and sight-impaired readers.
B. Backlight illumination provides even lighting, again, serving aging and sight-impaired readers.
C. Read-aloud features serve beginning readers (children), non-English readers, sight-impaired readers, and aural learners.
D. Lightweight devices and touch-based "page turn" features help our members who are physically limited.
E. We have discovered over the years that there is little overlap between our e-book and our library's print book readership. We discovered, unexpectedly, that our youth readers preferred print books. Our biggest shock came when we realized our most regular e-book users were our senior members!
Real-life ministry examples:
- The first day our library offered e-books, an elderly lady signed up for e-books telling me, "I used to come to the library a lot, but your large-print collection is small. Now, with e-books on my iPad, I can make the print as large as I want. Thank You."
- One church provides the e-book services even without a traditional library.
- Another church library known for their exceptional children's summer reading club, has a missionary family in Mexico whose kids participate via e-books. They receive their prizes through the mail. Their names appear on the Awards Chart alongside all the local readers.
- A youth, listening to a CD series while on vacation, finished a volume, but had not brought the next set. Disaster! … until he found the next volume in his church’s audiobook collection. Disaster averted!
- Another e-book church librarian told of a lady in her congregation, a voracious reader, who had stopped coming to the library. She was caring for her husband who had a terminal disease. Sometime after his death, the lady returned to the library and described her experience, "So many nights I sat up all night with my husband. Reading e-books was my 'salvation.' I never would have made it without the library's e-book collection."
When your library is evaluating an e-book ministry, remember, you may be serving a different group of readers, some of whom may have never visited your church library. The e-book service is much more than a simple expansion of the library ministry. It is a new ministry serving a new group of people.
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Glenn McEowen serves as a library volunteer at Wedgwood Baptist in Fort Worth, TX. He is the VP of Sales and Development with Library Concepts.
This article is a part of a series on e-books on the Church Librarians Network.
[1]The term e-books is used to describe both electronic books (including text and illustrations) and audio books. These are typically downloaded (or streamed) to devices such as e-readers, smartphones, tablets and computers.
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