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 out-of-date (particularly finance books and futurist prophecy books)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.

 

[Ben1445]

I did not answer these questions before because I didn't want to give half an answer.

Does your church have a library?

Growing up we did. (Library 1)
At our church now, (Library 2) I have found some books that are the beginnings of a library. Aside from these, there are some of my own books, (clearly labeled) for anyone to use. (If you put your own books out there, be prepared to never see them again. Mark them if you want to try to get them back, but be prepared for the possibility that they be lost, or forgotten, or treated how you would not treat them.)

Lu 6:35 But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.

I know the context is different but the principle is the same.

How is it organized?

Library 1.
We had a school at the church. One of the teachers was in charge of it and the students were tasked with being the librarians. At some point, we began to clean up the library also. We did start using the Dewey Decimal System for the sake of the school use.
Library 2.
I use an app called book buddy. Apple. There is a similarly named app in google but it doesn't look like the same app, publisher or quality.
I can recommend the apple version.
You can add by barcode, check out books, and for a small price, get unlimited entries. this would be a must if you want to use it for more than 50 books.

I wish I had seen LibraryThing before I did bookbuddy. It looks great and it sounds like you don't need a person to record the borrow except the borrower.

Who runs or maintains it?

Library 1.
Students gave reports on books to give them the proper grade reading level, book condition, and even gave recommendations for whether or not the book should remain in the library. I'm sure that the recommendation was viewed with the quality of student in mind. It was then removed or recorded with date of review and added.
Library 2.
Me

 

[Marooncat79]

This is one of the ways that I do missions

I send books to pastors overseas. It seems to help them become better Bible Students and pastors, but only God knows for sure

I enjoy doing it, they seem to enjoy receiving them

 

[Deacon]

I’m enjoying working with LibraryThing & TinyCat.
The TinyCat site is developing daily as I tag and categorize the books. I even added the church’s logo this morning. So far I haven’t had to pay for it but as soon as I go public with it there will be a small charge ($6-8 dollars a month).

I’ve added quite a few of my own books to their collection, books that I value but rarely consult. I’m careful not to provoke undue controversy and limit my donations to relatively conservative choices.

The Library is ideally located in a central location with a meeting area for group studies. There’s even a large window to the sanctuary,

Last week I received an email note of thanks from one of the church members who says they are excited to begin to explore the “new” library.

We began a summer reading club twice a month. About 20 kids from 2 to 12 gather with their mom’s and read, learn and explore the library.

On Sunday I am meeting with a gentleman who says his young daughter would like to help out in the library. After much thought I found a perfect role, color coding the youth books.

Eventually I’d like to see the home school kids begin to write book reviews and add them to each book’s description.

Rob

 

[Roy Kling]

Yes, we do, small as it is across the hall from the pastor's office in the basement. Imagine a bunch of wooden milk crates stacked floor to ceiling three or four wide. Probably around 150 books. We may have to do something soon as my brother and I are finally going to dispose of our mother's collection which would add probably another 50-60 books.

 

[Deacon]

Yes, we do, small as it is across the hall from the pastor's office in the basement. Imagine a bunch of wooden milk crates stacked floor to ceiling three or four wide. Probably around 150 books. We may have to do something soon as my brother and I are finally going to dispose of our mother's collection which would add probably another 50-60 books.

Basements tend to be rather humid... a bad place to store books.
I've had quite a few people drop off books... I may keep 3 or 4, the rest get piled on my give-a-way table.

Rob

 

[Roy Kling]

There's several dehumidifiers down there, one right there in that hallway. Our church, like our barns here are dug in the side of hills. The basement is actually ground level on the East side, West side, the worship hall is maybe 6'' above parking lot level, (it's a real blessing for old guys with bad knees like me!).

 

[Deacon]

I found a few interesting books in the collection.

I've already mentioned one in an earlier post:
The Resultant Greek Testament by Richard Francis Weymouth (1892, a first edition!)

And I found a signed copy of a text by J.B. Phillips (a notable early dynamic equivalence/paraphrase translator).

And two of my favorite children's books:
The Man Who Slept Through A Sermon by Evelyn Marxhausen
and How God Gives Us Chocolate by Henrietta D. Gambill.

Rob

 

[Dr. Bob]

How God Gives Us Chocolate by Henrietta D. Gambill.

Can I check this book out remotely?