Christian Librarianship: Essays on the Integration of Faith and Profession

Citation

Bakewell, K.G.B. (2003), "Christian Librarianship: Essays on the Integration of Faith and Profession", New Library World, Vol. 104 No. 9, pp. 381-382. https://doi.org/10.1108/03074800310493215

Non‐Christian librarians might well think that a book with this title is of no interest to them, but I think they would be wrong. They may not agree with the statement on p. 17, based on a student project by Richard Waller, that “the philosophical tenets of the Christian faith are consistent with the assumptions that underlie library practice”, but they will find useful information on such topics as mentoring, counselling, showing concern for the needs of library users by means of personal service, censorship, multiculturalism and intellectual freedom. I would, however, have liked to have seen much more on a Christian (or humanitarian) approach to management and particularly personnel management.

The editor begins his introduction by citing John A.H. Dempster’s response to Douglas Foskett’s well known paper “The creed of a librarian: no politics, no religion, no morals”. Foskett’s point was, of course, that a librarian must be completely neutral but Dempster’s view, and the view of all the contributors to this collection, is that a Christian must be his or her “Christian self in every situation”.

Most of the 16 papers in the collection were originally published elsewhere, mainly The Christian Librarian (USA) or Christian Librarian (UK). “Partnership in library development: the mission focus of Christian librarians” by William Fraher Abernathy and Kenneth D. Gill is a substantial revision of an article published in Christian Librarian (UK), 1994, and some of the other contributions would have benefited from revision or editing. For example Roger W. Phillips states, on p. 93, that “the respected theologian F.F. Bruce contributes regularly to the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library”, but this respected theologian died several years ago. The same author asks, on p. 98, whether a graduate knows how to use the card catalogue, but I think he or she might have difficulty finding a card catalogue in these days of computerisation.

Better editing could also have removed some national bias. On p. 100, for example, John Allen Delivuk writes “the term multiculturalism is often applied to the recent changes in American (my italics) society as the percentage of immigrants and non‐whites has increased from one in five around 1980 to one in four by 1990”. Many non‐Christians (and some Christians) would take exception to the following comment by Delivuk on p. 105: “For example, we reject the position of some librarians that the homosexual lifestyle should be approved as a separate cultural group. Multiculturalism cannot be used as an excuse for sin”.

As a former lecturer on classification, I was intrigued by Roger W. Phillips’ assertion on p. 89 that all the major classification schemes have a secular bias. He rightly points out that Colon classification (compiled, though he does not say so, by a non‐Christian) allows a particular book to be related to faith.

Many Christian librarians are concerned about Sunday opening of public libraries, including this reviewer (especially when, as has happened in at least one public library, Sunday opening is used for the promotion of “New Age” activities and beliefs). In “Nothing new under the sun? Public libraries and Sunday opening in the nineteenth century”, Graham Hedges shows that the controversy about Sunday opening is far from new. In 1891 Thomas Greenwood concluded that Sunday opening was becoming one of the most pressing questions of the day. When the first two branch libraries were opened in Leicester in the 1890s through the generosity of two wealthy benefactors, one grant was made on the condition that the branch should open on Sundays while the other stipulated that the library should not open on Sundays. Charles Hill, Secretary of the Working Men’s Lord’s Day Rest Association, argued in 1879 that it was a delusion to suppose that opening libraries and other places of amusement on Sundays would draw persons away from the public house.

It is unusual to find an index to a collection of papers such as this. It is good to find one here, but it would never win the Wheatley Medal! Subjects omitted from the index include anabaptists, book (or stock) selection, enlightenment, faceted classification, information explosion, interacting, OCLC, plagiarism, temperance and users (or clients, or even customers). The indexer cannot make his or her mind up whether or not to index names: Asham, Canavan, Davis, Gorman, Marx and Milton are among those who are indexed; Cadbury, Foskett, Ranganathan, Waller and Wasserman (to say nothing of Bakewell!) are among many who are not indexed. Presumably the index was not compiled by a professional indexer, which is unfortunate.

An interesting, challenging and thought‐provoking collection of papers which will provoke discussion by Christians and non‐Christians.