How to Start a Parish Lending Library
by V. Rev. George Masters
Even if you don’t have a dedicated spare room on your parish campus, you can still start a parish lending library! Many parishes have a lending library nook in the fellowship hall. That’s all it takes to start. The collection does not have to be large to be useful. Even mission parishes can start a library housed in a small foot locker with about 50 volumes to start and still provide adequate service to the community.
Goals
The goals of a parish lending library are to provide:
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An additional avenue for the educational needs of parish members, young and old
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Resources for seekers, and catechumens
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Additional resources that can be used in the church school and adult education ministries
As parish libraries grow, they can even provide resources for the benefit of the parish’s clergy. Just imagine if all parishes had parish libraries, members of the clergy would not have to move boxes and boxes of books when they change parish assignments.
Acquiring Books and Media
Acquiring books and materials is as simple as having parishioners donate appropriate books that they have already read to the library. The parish priest can also recommend titles to be added. However, for best results, it is best to have a line item in the budget that allows for the library to purchase books and materials. To keep the costs lower, have the parish bookstore order the materials to take advantage of publisher’s wholesale pricing.
Check with the seminary presses for availability of specially priced bundles specifically for parish libraries.
To ensure contributions are relevant and appropriate, it’s good to have a library acquisitions policy to govern what is acceptable. A sample policy can be found on the OCLS web site.
Developing the Library Team
Treat the library as a parish ministry. Select a lead person to manage the library ministry. As with other parish ministries, develop a process for identifying and training volunteers. Volunteers do not need to have professional librarianship training; however, if your parish has trained librarians in its midst, they can make excellent volunteers and can provide useful advice on day to day management.
It’s important to have enough people to have someone available during fellowship hour to answer questions and check books in and out. It’s best to have a rotation schedule, so that you don’t burn out volunteers.
Managing the Library
You can develop a manual system for checking books and resources in and out. However, to be able to offer e-books, and resources online, an Integrated Library System (ILS) is a must. ILS systems allow users to see what the library has, and place reserves for materials. The ILS system allows librarians to:
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track usage of resources,
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managing church school and parochial school textbook inventories,
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link with a parochial school’s Student Information System.
Several excellent low-cost, open-source alternatives are available. Koha, Evergreen, and OPALS are all excellent choices for parish libraries.
OPALS lends itself to parish lending libraries as it makes cataloging the library easier, even for those not trained in librarianship. Hosting providers can host OPASL for you on their servers at a very affordable cost compared to other choices. For more information about OPALS, visit their web site. Based on the experience of the St. Christina of Tyre Orthodox Church Parish Library, OPALs is the better, and more affordable choice for large and small parish libraries. Some of OPALS benefits for parish libraries include:
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An easy method for producing reading lists for all ages on various topics of interest (LIBGuides)
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A module for managing church/parochial school textbooks
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Ability to interface to parochial school Student Information System
The OPALS web site has training videos you can use to train team members in using the OPALS system if you decide to use it.