








































Presbyterian and Reformed


47

Presbyterian and Reformed 
Virginia Dearborn, Princeton Theological Seminary, Secretary

MEMBERS PRESENT

• Denise Pakala, retired, Covenant Theological Seminary
• Jim Pakala, retired, Covenant Theological Seminary
• Margaret Alkema, Canadian Reformed Theological Seminary
• Robin McCall, Union Presbyterian Seminary
• Steve Jamieson, Covenant Theological Seminary
• Virginia Dearborn, Princeton Theological Seminary
• Becky Givens, Covenant Theological Seminary

AGENDA

Virginia, as interim moderator, welcomed everyone to the virtual 
meeting. She invited attendees to share introductions, library news, 
and other institutional updates. No one present had attended Atla 
Annual 2023 in person; only Virginia and Steve attended some of 
the conference virtually. Virginia would have attended more ses-
sions but for an unexpected schedule conflict. Becky Givens, who 
was unable to join the denominational meeting, did attend the con-
ference in person according to her colleagues.

In the reports below, looking for reference librarians and hav-
ing difficulty offering adequate compensation to attract and retain 
library staff were clear themes. Adjacent to these were existing 
theological librarians having to fill multiple roles, having fewer 
librarians within particular religious traditions (or even familiar 
with them) in applicant pools, and institutional downsizing or 
other organizational decisions negatively impacting library staff 
retention.

Robin, a seminary graduate who completed her library degree 
in 2021 after being a professor for several years, remarked on the 
fact that theological librarianship was never mentioned in library 
school as an option in the field. As another example of seminary 
graduates entering the field, Virginia mentioned a Princeton Semi-
nary grad who now is a librarian at Candler and Robin knew of an-



48    ANNUAL Y E ARBOOK

other as well. Robin mused about reaching out to her alma mater 
(and the rest of us doing the same) to advocate for greater visibility 
of theological librarianship in their programs. Jim remembered 
the theological librarianship course that used to be taught out of 
Drexel University, and now there’s the course Carisse Berryhill 
teaches out of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Atla 
members may take that course without paying out-of-state tuition, 
and perhaps more library schools need to be made aware of and 
promote it.

Virginia asked if anyone was interested in serving as the new 
moderator of the group. Robin volunteered and was approved by 
acclamation. Alexis from Atla mentioned that the member list for 
the group has not been updated for a very long time. Jim offered to 
help Robin review the list and make suggestions of others to invite 
to the group. Virginia also offered to help as needed.

ROUND ROBIN REPORTS

Canadian Reformed Theological Seminary (Hamilton, Ontar-
io, Canada) – Margaret Alkema, Librarian, said that library-wise 
things have been pretty stable. She is still a solo librarian and the 
school is still very small. There was some construction going on in 
the building this past academic year, preventing classes from be-
ing held in the building. She was pleasantly surprised that quite a 
number of students still came in. Some of the building work meant 
that there was a wall with carrels along it that she could not use 
from February until May, but she made it work. She is also working 
on an ATS report and meanwhile needs more time to focus on look-
ing at space requirements for the collection. The library purchases 
enough print that some areas are tight and shifting is needed, and 
probably weeding as well, but it takes time to plan.

Covenant Theological Seminary (Creve Coeur, Missouri, USA) – 
Steve Jamieson, Library Director, said the library has a very ac-
tive year ahead. Staffing-wise, at the beginning of this past year, 
campus-wide cuts in personnel also affected the library and they 
lost a collection development librarian. Today is the last day for 
public services librarian, Andrew Stout, who is taking a position 
elsewhere. That position at least will be allowed to be refilled. Cov-
enant is also up for ATS reaccreditation. Steve is on the steering 
committee for that process and chairing the subcommittee working 
on the library chapter. Buswell Library is also undergoing a library 



Denominational Group Reports    49

system migration, because their consortium, MOBIUS, is moving 
from Millennium to FOLIO. They’re implementing EBSCO Discov-
ery Service as a frontend (or one frontend) for FOLIO. Thankfully, 
the cutover got pushed back to a more academic-friendly date, af-
ter the Spring 2024 semester is over. Also, the library will migrate 
to a new institutional repository later this year.

Although both Pakalas are retired, Denise volunteers in the library 
at Covenant, doing work with inventory in the rare book room and 
database cleanup with authority records and so forth. With the ad-
vent and growth of HathiTrust and the Internet Archive, she’s now 
able to add links to freely available resources to the catalog records 
to a large collection of Bibles translated into many different lan-
guages that the library received many years ago.

Princeton Theological Seminary, Wright Library (Princeton, 
New Jersey, USA) – Virginia Dearborn, Discovery and Web Ser-
vices Librarian, reported that since our last gathering the Semi-
nary’s first African American and first non-Presbyterian President, 
Rev. Dr. Jonathan Walton, began his term. President Walton is an 
M.Div. and Ph.D. graduate and former trustee of the Seminary. Out-
going Academic Dean Jacqueline Lapsley is leaving to become the 
President of Union Presbyterian Seminary. Also, the Seminary has 
launched two new degree programs, Master of Arts in Theology 
(Justice and Public Life), which is a two-year part-time, hybrid pro-
gram, and Master of Arts in Theology & Ecology (MTE), a 13-month 
residential program.

As of this meeting, Wright Library has open searches for two 
full-time positions: Reference and Research Librarian and Head of 
Circulation Services. Foot traffic in the library has yet to resume 
pre-pandemic levels, as shuttle service from the student family 
housing is limited, fewer single students are living on campus, 
and the Seminary drew down its enrollment in recent years. The 
library has also implemented Sierra via Summon, added LCSH 
terms (where present) as “Topics” in the Theological Commons 
open-access digital library, and is being included in a website mi-
gration and redesign project along with the rest of the seminary. 
One library staff member participated in one of the new Life To-
gether courses last year and another will participate this fall. These 
courses are open to first-year students and taught by a faculty 
member assisted by an administrator; in addition to course work, 
each class attends worship together in the chapel followed by eat-
ing lunch together weekly and does a service project together.



50    ANNUAL Y E ARBOOK

Union Presbyterian Seminary (Richmond, Virginia, USA) – Robin 
McCall, the new seminary librarian at Union Presbyterian Semi-
nary, reported that following the departure of Christopher Rich-
ardson (who was the most recent convener of our denominational 
group) at the end of January, she became the new seminary librar-
ian. Previously, she had been working for about two years as the 
reference librarian. Things have been pretty good so far and a little 
bit of an adventure. They are trying to find a reference librarian to 
replace her and someone to replace the director of the Charlotte 
campus library. She does finally have somebody in an interim posi-
tion in Charlotte, but the reference librarian search continues.

OTHER

Noting the low attendance at the meeting, Robin asked how we 
might get more Atla members to join our denominational group. 
One challenge is that many people working at Presbyterian or Re-
formed schools are not themselves members of those denomina-
tional groups. Jim suggested those of us at PCUSA seminaries could 
encourage the new(er) library directors and so on at Columbia, 
Austin, Louisville, and Pittsburgh, to get involved. Denise suggest-
ed hosting a short lecture on a topic of interest to Presbyterian and 
Reformed librarians during our meeting or possibly at another 
time that might work as a draw. Robin mentioned the Grawemeyer 
Award in Religion out of Louisville Seminary together with the Uni-
versity of Louisville, https://www.lpts.edu/friends/grawemeyer/, as 
a possible source. Not only are all the books that get nominated 
about religion, but many of them are also specifically related to 
Presbyterianism. Dr. Tyler Mayfield chairs the program; Rev. Dr. 
Kelly Brown Douglas is the 2023 award winner. We do not know if 
and/or how the library is involved in the program, but that could 
be something to follow up on.

As we were a small group this year, after the introductions, 
there was some reminiscing about various library building chal-
lenges and about the days when John Trotti, who was the semi-
nary librarian at Union for many years, led the Presbyterian and 
Reformed Denominational Group meetings. Trotti passed away in 
2013.

https://www.lpts.edu/friends/grawemeyer/

