A Church Library

[Deacon]

Does your church have a library?
How is it organized?
Who runs or maintains it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I recently joined a congregation and was given the responsibility of organizing their library of about 2000 books.
It's probably been 10 years since anyone took an interest in the books collected there.

I've culled a lot of books including those...
> yellowed with age,
> Mildewed or smelly,
> out-of-date (particularly finance books and futurist prophecy books)
> Inappropriate material and authors

About half of the books are for the youth, some Christian publishers, some not.
These I've organized these by two criteria, age appropriateness and subject (Animals, Horses, Series, Science, etc).
I've separated the Young Adult fictional reading material from the Religious Literature.

I considered various organizational methods for the "adult" books, including the obvious Dewey Decimal System which has some advantages.
But I've settled on organizing them to emphasize church concerns and functions:
> Devotional
> Biographies
> Commentaries
> New Believer resources (such as, "How to Study the Bible")
> Theology (organized in a Systematic Theology arrangement)
> Christian Living
> Popular Authors
> General

I'm utilizing a internet program called LibraryThing [link] to digitalize the catalogue.

An associated program TinyCat [link] allows congregational access to the Catalogue as well as the ability to record book use and return.

Rob

 

[Salty]

Looks like you did a great job.....
Let me know when you move to Central New York......

 

[Dr. Bob]

With the exorbitant price of books today, I commend any church for having a "library" system to loan to families. Good job on how yours is set up and the difficult choice to discard.

Unsure why a church library would have/desire general books that are in most public libraries. Those would be in a "give-away" box immediately for me. A "church" library should contain "church"-centered books like your categories and simple divisions to help anyone seeking on that topic.

 

[Deacon]

Unsure why a church library would have/desire general books that are in most public libraries. Those would be in a "give-away" box immediately for me. A "church" library should contain "church"-centered books like your categories and simple divisions to help anyone seeking on that topic.

One of my field trips was to scout out the local library... looking for ideas.
Unfortunately, local libraries (even here in the Bible Belt) are focused on things antithetical to godly living.

MY CHURCH LIBRARY PHILOSOPHY parallels the pastor's:

• To cultivate a space of wisdom, exploration, and imagination, centered on the truth of Scripture and the Lordship of Christ.
• To serve as a reservoir of valuable theological resources for a student, a teacher, a leader, or a researcher of Scripture

The library will include:

• Theological Works: Biblical theology, commentary, instruction, doctrine, church history, apologetics, etc.
• Christian Living & Spiritual Formation Literature: Books that interact with family dynamics, politics, finance, science, the arts, social issues, from a biblical worldview.
• Fiction & Classic Literature: Include works that incorporate or encourage exploration of Christian themes, even if not explicitly Christian
• Children’s & Young Adult Books: Age-appropriate, biblically grounded, and imaginatively rich (popular series, graphic novels, comics, joke books, sports, etc)

But I want the kids, particularly the young boys, to get into the habit of reading, given time they will stumble into great material.

The children's book selection is quite diverse. They purchased about 300 kid books just prior to my taking on the task.

Now ... I have not even touched the 5 or 6 book cases filled with Women's Christian 'Romances' in the church library. UGGGH
There's a woman's book author that lives in our retirement community. I may eventually contact her as a resource.

Rob

 

[Salty]

Unsure why a church library would have/desire general books that are in most public libraries. Those would be in a "give-away" box immediately for me. A "church" library should contain "church"-centered books like your categories and simple divisions to help anyone seeking on that topic.

1) If the church starts a Christian School,... 2) could be a resource for non-church families to visit....

 

[Ben1445]

With the exorbitant price of books today, I commend any church for having a "library" system to loan to families. Good job on how yours is set up and the difficult choice to discard.

Unsure why a church library would have/desire general books that are in most public libraries. Those would be in a "give-away" box immediately for me. A "church" library should contain "church"-centered books like your categories and simple divisions to help anyone seeking on that topic.

We had a church library growing up. It was a room that everybody found interest in. When we were kids, we read comics, when we were old, we put away childish things. But we were used to being there, we were used to reading from that library and the books had been looked at so that they were not books that are full of wicked, lewdness.
it was a place where kids could choose their own books in the safety of the barriers the church had supplied. This is, in my opinion, worth all the time it takes to manage. I don't enjoy the public library like I used to when I was younger. I would love to be able to take my children to the same libraries I went to. They were by no means sanctified places. they were much better than they are today.