Jo Vandermey
Joined the CRC when I got married over 25 years ago from the Anglican Church where I was raised and actively involved.
I have been involved in Gems, Sunday School, Coffee Break, VBS and now head the Library Ministry of our church and am involved with a small group book club.
3 children, wonderful husband and many live experiences just about sum it up.
Posted in: How Do You Get Teens Interested in Reading Christian Books?
Caroline has some good comments.
Another suggestion is talk to the youth group to let them know what you have.
Drop in Sunday school and let the kids know what you have and what is new.
Get some of the books and approach some kids to read them to "help you" and get some feedback.
Make suggestions to parents to take a book and try it out.
Have you read any of the books that you have picked. I read a bunch one year ago for a workshop I did for the Church Library Association of Ontario. I can send the spread sheet to anyone who is interested. I don't have it updated but it is currrent as of fall 2009.
Start small with some solid series.
As mentioned fantasy book series do draw kids in. C S. Lewis and tolkien are obvious. The Donita Paul series is good as Caroline mentioned.
Spend an afternoon browsing the online Christian book sites.
The ones I purchase from the most is
Livingbooks.ca in Canada
"Bookdepot" "Bookcloseouts" online ships Canada and US - has a retail and wholesale website. Good deals on books that are a bit older and are remainders.
Christianbooks.com
It is is just a try, try, try again venture.
The books don't go out of style quickly so they have long self life.
Be encouraged! It is possible to engage kids. Not all but some.
Jo Vandermey
Providence CRC
Beamsville, Ontario
Posted in: Should church libraries be viewed as a ministry?
It seems from some of the reponses that people who are in the Library ministry get support in some areas and not in others.
In general I think that libraries are an under utilized resource.
It is a ministry that is hard to get a handle on it unless you are involved in it.
I think this is do alot because we get the libraries up and running but we don't do alot of "advertizing"
Communicating with our members, council and other committess is important.
Posted in: Should church libraries be viewed as a ministry?
I agree that I think that it would be nice for the CRC to be actively engaged as seeing the Library as a ministry of our local churches. I think this will only happen as we create more awareness of the function of the library. This is why I joined the Church Library Association of Ontario to become better equiped to do this. I wonder if there is a way you can get church emails easily to promote this as a link for Libraries. and then create a data base or awareness of it.
I know that the past president of the CLAO which I belong too was a member of the CRC and the current outreach coordinator of the association in a member of the CRC.
Thanks for replying.
For now we can start discussing with each other. If I can figure out how to link us for conversations.
Jo
Posted in: Should church libraries be viewed as a ministry?
So many people view the library as a space for Janette Oke books (not that they are bad but there is such a big world of author styles out there) and kid dvd's
Great that you have expanded your collection!
I noticed that Marlene who responded to this survey also was a committee of one.
The best thing I did was recruit a few people to help me. I was feeling overwelmed and under "loved" (not really under loved but definitely overwelmed)
How about we figure out how to support each other?
I can gladly share any policyies, proceedures or information I have collected to share with you guys.
Jo
Posted in: Youth and the Church Library Ministry
That is great that you supply your youth with material. My kids have always been big readers. They would read no matter what. But it has been teachers or other adults who have directed them to a good read or resourse.
That is great!
Posted in: Youth and the Church Library Ministry
What questions do you have about starting a church library? There are some resources I can point you to or share with you what we have done at our church.
Posted in: Library Ministry
There is some library software programs that you can hook up with your churches web site. The softeware I use is called resourcemate by jaywil software. We have not hooked up our data base with the web site because our churches website is not up and running as such to do this yet. It is a goal of mine to get us online.
Dialogue from the library or such can be done via a blog as well.
Posted in: Small Group Ministries and Coordinating With the Library Ministry
Wow that is great that you promote the library and resources. Librarians for the most part I am finding do not feel supported from the other church ministry groups. Our small group ministry has just asked me for a list of resources and was suprised when I gave them such a long list.
Listing, compiling and maintaining a good library does take a significant amount of time and research to compile. That is one reason I belong to a Church Library association. To get help and support in Library as a ministry.
Posted in: Any Librarians Here?
I placed a question in some of the headings at the top of the network page headers.
It asks about them using the library and how the library is viewed.
It has garnered a response from the pastor of the pastor title and will use my question as a possible guest post.
We can only promote the library as a ministry by promoting it our selves and supporting others.
As with any ministry and a volenteer ministry usually because you like to read yourself you can get burned out.
Someone asked if it was benifitial to belong to an association and I feel it is. The CLAO - church library association of Ontario - provides for $15 a year - membership. This gives a discount on Library supplies from Broadart, 4 times a year newsletter, website, yahoo group, facebook group (the facebook host is great!) and puts on two conferences a year. They also sell material to use to educate yourself and promote your library.
What is the National Church Association like in the US?
Jo Vandermey
Providence CRC
Beamsville, Ontario
Posted in: Any Librarians Here?
I subscribe (for free) to Faithful Reader as a website to read their reviews.
You can find it at faithfulreader.com
I have to look up my other resources.
Posted in: Any Librarians Here?
I just put a comment/suggestion into the site to get a forum of our own entitled Church Library Ministry or some such. You may vote to get the idea into a Network forum and make comments as why you would like it to be.
Lets see if we can get our own Forum to share our ideas and information.
You can get there by clicking on Feedback, the orange button on your right.
Jo Vandermey