Marlene Boven
I grew up in GR and graduated from GR Central Christian High.
I married a dairy farmer and have been enjoying life in McBain, Mi for 40 years. We have 4 grown children and 8 grandchildren.
I worked as the librarian for Northern Michigan Christian school in McBain for 22 years.
I am the librarian at the Cadillac CRC church in Cadillac, MI.
I am currently a deacon and I love the NETWORK !
Posted in: Should church libraries be viewed as a ministry?
How do you view the church library?
I view the library as a service, as a ministry and as a way to practice good stewardship of our resources.
Would you say your church library is part of the Ministry Team in your church?
no
Do you have regular contact or input from the pastor, group leaders or council in your church?
no
What would be the biggest area served in your church? ie small groups, children, dvd's, fiction, non fictionchildren and women's fiction
fiction, women's fiction and children
Size of your congragation?
200-300
Number of items in your library?
1700
Method of sign out? card, computerized, other
card
Do you feel supported in your work?
no
How many "staff" do you have?
1
Do you have a commitee?
no
Do you make reports to your council?
no
Do you have a budget amount?
yes
Do you fundraise?
no
Do you have a newsletter/publication in the church newsletter or bullitin?
not regularly
Do you have contact with a Library Association?
I am a member of the National Church Library Association. I would really really love to have The CRC have workshops for librarians and an exchange of email addresses.
.Comments
I have just finished putting our library into the ResourceMate database. I am working on getting this onto our church's webpage so people will be able to search the library from their computer at home.I also would like to have the CRC emphasize the library as a ministry and train librarians.
Posted in: Do you know of websites that would interest children or adults that we could add to a church library webpage?
Thanks, Jolanda, That looks like a great site!!
Posted in: CRC Internet One Year Bible Journey
Yes!!!!!!!!!!! I would love to have the CRC develope a site like the One Year Bible Journey. It would be awesome to think about reading the same thing as our fellow CRC brothers and sisters at the same time. Commentary explaining the passage istorically and culturaly and advice for promoting actions in our life would be a tremendous help. I would love to see ideas such as "this passage speaks about Social Justice or Stewardship" and give ideas about how to put this into practice in our daily life. Imagine if the whole CRC church were reading this at the same time!! Wow.
Posted in: Any Librarians Here?
Hi,
I'm Marlene Boven at Cadillac CRC in Cadillac, Michigan. We, too, have a collection of around 2500 books plus audio books and DVD's. I am so happy to have other Christian librarians to talk to! We are recently automated but have some final tweeks to do before we go online. Discussions that would interest me are book reviews and library promotion ideas. Also, what are your thoughts about investing more money in audio CD's with the usage of MP3 players etc.?
Posted in: Any Librarians Here?
I am looking for a book(s) dealing with homosexuality from a CRC viewpoint for our church's library.
Posted in: Any Librarians Here?
Hi Jo,
I wonder if we can rename this forum from Church Library to Church Library Ministry.
I feel the church library in our CRC churches are untapped learning resources and outreach ministries .I would love to see the CRC take the stand that our libraries are ministries. They need to be talked about in the CRC and with some librarian training they could be awesome places of ministry. Just this week..... we signed out some books and DVDs to our Friendship Ministry people. Also, I purchased some good book glue and I am repairing Bibles that are dearly loved and are falling apart.
There are many ways to use the library as a Ministry!! Do any other librarians have ideas about how God could use us?
If you are a librarian, please reply to this.Let's get some discussion going!
Does anyone else have ongoing ministries in their churches that we could loan books to? Jail ministry, perhaps, or Kids Hope.
Posted in: Any Librarians Here?
Hi Jo,
I am a member of the National Church Library Association. Membership is $55 a year. The link to them is....
http://www.churchlibraries.org/ and Im usually find something I can use i
They have an email newsletter, "Branches", that I find helpful. It has book reviews and articles; I usually find something usefull in each issue. They have group member discounts for library supplies etc. They also have links to helpful online resources
I wish the price was lower. I also wish they had meeetings closer to Michigan.
Do any of you librarians out there have a favorite website you would like to share? Where do you get Christian book reviews and/or library ideas?