The Duke Divinity School Library Staff attended the American Theological Library Association Annual Conferencee in The Queen City of Charlotte, North Carolina last week. I presented a poster "The Religion in North Carolina Digital Collection: Content, Audience, and Presentation. The presentation featured background about the project planning grant, scope and audience, organizing content and workflow, copyright analysis, incidences of impact, digital output and Black Church identity politics as reflected in meeting minutes and church histories. Everyone wanted to know about the grant! Fellow librarians shared their interest and excitement about the digital collection. A few even asked me to consult on their archival programs. The poster presentation and attendance at the Methodist Librarian's Fellowship meeting gave me the opportunity to share with and learn from a variety of theological libraries accessing their own collections for mass digitization.  |
| We are all so engaged! |
I really enjoyed the close knit community ATLA fosters. Though small in size, ATLA is big on personality and on professional development. At the opening night mixer for first time attendees we played a "Bingo" themed game that required us to introduce ourselves to people who could fill our cards. The pre-printed matrix cards featured boxes including "Board Member", "First Time Attendee", "Member of the __ Committee", "Is attending the Diversity Committee Movie Night", and "Attending the Charlotte Knights Baseball Game". I was so happy to met many of the librarians I've been emailing about materials transfers for the project including Chris Anderson from Drew University. The overwhelming majority of people I met were library directors. At one point I just had to take a step back and ask "if everyone a library director here but me?" I asked my new colleagues what they were most excited about experiencing at the conference.
Carisse Berryhill, Administrative Librarian at Abilene Christian University answer to that question sums up the feel of the conference, "Hugging all my friends and meeting new people". I had a blast!
Here's a rundown on my favorite sessions:
1) Librarianship as a Christian Calling by John E. Shaffett, Director of Library Services, The Baptist College of Florida
Shaffett's lecture tied biblical portrayals of hospitality, notions of stewardship, Christian calling and the Master of Library Science into the neat bow I was hoping the talk would when I pre-registered for the session. I don't want to get too personal on this blog but Shaffett's scholarship struck me right at the core. My whole professional career and academic journey has been led by my unanswered faith questions from childhood. Sometimes I look around and really wonder how I got where I am. Is theological librarianship a ministry? Do theological librarians have a particular calling? Yes. Yes. I'll leave it that.
2) Theological Libraries and "The Theology of Hospitality" David R. Stewart, Director of Libraries, Bethel University; Tracy Powell Iwaskow, Head of Public Services and Periodicals Librarian, Pitts Theological Library, Emory University; Anthony Elia, Public Services Librarian, Burke Library, Union Theological Seminary
This panel explored how hospitality is (and has been) practiced in theological communities and their libraries, and how specific practices enrich vocational communities in specific and important ways. I was especially interested in the session due to a big career announcement I will be making in my next post. The take away from this session was that we must be discerning to library patrons as though they are our neighbors, not necessarily our friends when it comes to service delivery and respect.
3) Support for Online Bible Studies Jennifer Bartholomew, E-Services Librarian, Luther Seminary
This session shared tips and tools to support students and ministers engaged in providing online Bible studies for a variety of groups. This session was EXCELLENT! The resources shared were extremely practical (a few other demonstrations were a bit abstract for my taste) and relevant to the design of digital meeting spaces. I hope to replicate this kind of user guide here at the Divinity School Library in the fall (that's a hint!).
I also enjoyed Teaching Analytical Reading Skills and Reading Strategies to Seminary Students, 11 Million Reasons to Become Diverse: How Diverse Populations are Changing Libraries and Society, and Transition to Management: A Conversation for New, Interim, and Aspiring Library Directors.
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| Sometimes I laugh at my own jokes |
