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Presbyterian and Reformed
Virginia Dearborn, Princeton Theological Seminary, Secretary

MEMBERS PRESENT

• Virginia Dearborn, Princeton Theological Seminary
• Ed Hughes, Memphis Theological Seminary
• Steve Jamieson, Covenant Theological Seminary
• Denise Pakala, retired, Covenant Theological Seminary
• Jim Pakala, retired, Covenant Theological Seminary
• Christopher Richardson, Union Presbyterian Seminary, 

Convener
• David Schmersal, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary
• John Shaffett, Shorter University
• Andrew Stout, Covenant Theological Seminary
• Andy Thomas, Covenant Theological Seminary

ABSENTEE MEMBERS

• Margaret Alkema, Canadian Reformed Theological Seminary
• Sharon Taylor, Shadyside Presbyterian Church 
• Bart Voskuil, Mid-America Reformed Seminary

AGENDA

As the convener of our group, Chris welcomed everyone and kicked 
off our sharing time together centered on takeaways from Atla 
Annual Conference 2021 (which was again virtual), unexpected and/
or top challenges of reopening the library and/or institutional news. 
Virginia agreed to take minutes as she and Margaret Alkema share 
the role and Margaret was unable to attend the meeting this year.



Denominational Group Meetings  55

ROUND ROBIN REPORTS

Union Presbyterian Seminary
Chris particularly appreciated Elizabeth Young Miller’s presenta-
tion Framing and Painting the Library: Mapping Existing Instruc-
tion, Services, and Practices to Established Standards and Can You 
Find Yourself in the Stacks? Building Diverse Collections in Religion 
and Theology presented by Suzanne Estelle-Holmer, Amy Limpit-
law, and Michelle Spomer. Some of the challenges the library has 
faced in reopening is rebuilding the student worker population, 
training/retraining and so on, as well as managing the volume of 
donated materials being offered after such a long time of defer-
ral. Dr. Paula Skreslet retired as Reference and Archives Librar-
ian. Dr. Robin McCall has joined the team as Reference Librarian, 
and Ryan Douthat has taken on the duties of Director of Archives & 
Special Collections. Union Presbyterian Seminary (UPSem) is hold-
ing summer classes online but will hold fall classes face to face with 
a vaccination requirement.

Covenant Theological Seminary 
Andrew Stout found the presentations and conversations about DEIA 
(diversity, equity, inclusion, and access) in this year’s conference 
resonant with the grappling with history and practices we are begin-
ning to do in the Presbyterian and Reformed traditions. Also, Andrew 
was interested to see what different schools/libraries are doing with 
their LMSs (Canvas, etc.). Covenant has also found it challenging to 
manage the large number of incoming donations.

Andy Thomas joined the team as Collection Development Librarian 
since we last met. Bo Adams’ presentation was a helpful introduction 
to Atla as well as the challenges librarians in the organization are 
facing with respect to collection development (rising costs, increas-
ing prevalence of e-content).

Jim and Denise, now both retired, continue to be involved with Cove-
nant and in Atla. The seminary’s outgoing president will be honored 
later this week; the incoming president is an alumnus. They’re happy 
to have Becky Givens in technical services and Andy in collection 
development.



56  A NNUA L Y E A RBOOK

Steve, who has become the Library Director since our last meeting, 
remarked on the practice of controlled digital lending which contin-
ues to evolve but has not yet developed to the point of any turnkey 
solutions.

From Jim (submitted following our meeting): 

Our consortium, as Steve Jamieson mentioned, is MOBIUS, which, 
like Atla, is now no longer an acronym but had stood for Missouri 
Bibliographic Information User System when we began over 20 
years ago. Since then, some public libraries have joined, including 
the Arkansas system centered in Little Rock and Tulsa Public with its 
branches, and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Texas 
joined (institutions join rather than just their libraries). There are 
also a few members in Iowa and Kansas. MOBIUS also has a mutual 
borrowing relationship with Prospector in Colorado (plus the Univer-
sity of Wyoming). States are connected by various courier services 
that interact.

Specifically, regarding e-books not being shared, MOBIUS has about 
261,713 EBSCO e-books with unlimited simultaneous users that all 
faculty, staff, and students of the academic members can access. 

We check MOBIUS holdings before purchasing a book, and if we can 
afford one expensive title but not another of two we’d like, we’ll get 
the one not in MOBIUS versus one that is. But that works only with 
print books, as e-books cannot be shared.

Princeton Theological Seminary
Virginia was glad for the opportunity to attend the virtual conference 
and looks forward to reviewing her notes and watching sessions she 
missed on demand. The library was called upon to reopen for Princ-
eton Seminary students, faculty, and staff on June 14, although the 
campus does not plan to reopen until the fall. Since security declined 
to conduct ID card checks on those entering the building, library 
staff have had to fill this role. One consequence of this has been the 
re-suspension of interlibrary loan services. Thankfully, they now 
have a Head of Special Collections and Archives (Brian Shetler) and 
an additional full-time cataloger (Nicholas Friesner) since we last 
met. The search for a Head of Public Services is ongoing. Princeton 
Seminary is undertaking antiracism formation work through the 



Denominational Group Meetings  57

curriculum and efforts involving employees, trustees, and alumni 
as well.

Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Stitt Library
David mentioned challenges related to reopening as renovation 
work continues and no student workers are available yet. Ninety 
percent of the collection was moved off-site during renovation and 
the remaining 10% has been in a nearby racquetball court. They have 
been using the LMS to create staff training modules.

Memphis Theological Seminary

Ed, whose background is in university and public libraries, finds 
Atla valuable for approaching theological librarianship. The biggest 
challenges in reopening the library have been staffing and budget. 
There are now only two library staff, including Ed, so they had to go 
to closed stacks and have tried to place the higher use materials on 
the main floor to aid retrieval. The library also cancelled the print 
journals and shifted to accepting on demand article requests.

Shorter University

John especially appreciated the pre-conference workshops at Atla 
Annual this year, particularly Strategic Planning: The Good, The Bad, 
and The Ugly by Siong Ng, Kelly Campbell, and Matthew Ostercamp. 
There has been some turnover in staff as some have retired and 
others have come on board. Much of the collections budget has gone 
to database purchases, leaving less for print. However, the incoming 
new provost may provide some hope for a change going forward.

Shadyside Presbyterian Church
Shadyside Presbyterian Church closed its building for most of the 
year, so Sharon could not spend much time in the church library 
and archives. It was supposed to be her year to weed and reorganize. 
Instead, she did as much as she could from home. Right now, she 
has over 50 new books on her dining room table ready for catalog-
ing and processing. The church building is now partially open and 
folks are asking, “What’s new in the library?”. Sharon also fielded 
some interesting reference questions about the church’s history and 
it has spurred her on to think about writing, including a history of 
the church during the COVID-19 crisis.



58  A NNUA L Y E A RBOOK

2020–21 GROUP: [pictured, left to right] Chris Richardson, John Shaffett, Jim Pakala, 
Denise Pakala, David Schmersal, Andy Thomas, Andrew Stout, Virginia Dearborn, Ed 
Hughes


