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East or West
Maintaining an Orthodox Collection inside 
a Lutheran-oriented Theological Library
By Jussi Hyvärinen, University of Eastern Finland Library

ABSTR ACT The School of Theology in the University of Eastern 
Finland consists of two study programs: Western Theology and Ortho-
dox Theology. Its predecessor was the Faculty of Theology in the Univer-
sity of Joensuu (2002-2009). Before the establishment of the faculty, the 
university provided education in theology from the year 1988. 

The development of the theological collection of the university library 
is intertwined with the history of the School of Theology. When the 
education of Orthodox priests in Finland was transferred from Kuopio 
Orthodox Seminary to the University of Joensuu in 1988, the Seminary 
Library collection was also merged into the university library. Therefore, 
the theological collection contained predominantly Orthodox material 
until the year 1997, when the university started to provide education 
also in Western theology. Since that time, the development of the theo-
logical collection has implied maintaining the balance between Western 
and Orthodox material. 

I will describe the challenges of maintaining and evaluating the 
collection of Orthodox theology in our library. Since the classifica-
tion system we have used does not distinguish between Western and 
Orthodox theology, we have invented a special UEF code used in cata-
loging. This enables distinction between Western and Orthodox mate-
rial when I evaluate our collection.

 1.  Eastern Orthodox Church and the Education of Orthodox 
Theology in Finland
There are two churches that hold a special position in the law 
of Finland: the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and the 
Finnish Orthodox Church. The Lutheran Church comprises 



Papers and Presentations  87

a majority of 3.9 million members (71% of the population), 
while the Orthodox Church is a minority of 1.1% with its 60,000 
members.1

The Finnish Orthodox Church was a part of the Russian 
Orthodox Church until the year 1917, when Finland achieved 
national independence from Russia. Since the year 1923, the 
Finnish Orthodox church has been an autocephalous archdio-
cese of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The 
church has three dioceses and two monasteries. Along with the 
Lutheran Church, the Finnish Orthodox Church has the status 
of a state church, the position of which is regulated by a specific 
law of the Orthodox Church.2 Although the members of the 
church comprise only a small minority of the Finnish popula-
tion, it has carried remarkable cultural significance, particularly 
in eastern Finland. The orthodox monasteries of New Valaam 
and Lintula in Heinävesi (North Karelia), in particular, are 
famous tourist attractions and places of pilgrimage.

In Finland, three universities offer degree-level education 
in theology: the University of Helsinki, Åbo Akademi in Turku, 
and the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) in Joensuu and 
Kuopio. The School of Theology at UEF is located at the Joensuu 
campus and consists of two study programs: Western theology 
and Orthodox theology. Even though the majority of the students 
study Western theology, UEF is the university where the priests 
and church musicians of the Finnish Orthodox Church have 
their education.3 It is also the only university in Nordic countries 
with degree-level education and research in Orthodox theology. 
Moreover, the Ministry of Education and Culture has defined the 
education of Orthodox theologians as one of the national special 
tasks of the University of Eastern Finland.4 

The history of the education of Orthodox priests in Finland 
began in the year 1918, when the Finnish Government issued a 
decree on ”the Greek Catholic Church in Finland.” In the same 
year, the Finnish Orthodox Priest Seminary began its work in 
Sortavala, Ladoga Karelia. After World War II, the seminary was 
evacuated from Sortavala to Kuopio, where it worked for four 
decades until the Department of Orthodox Theology was estab-
lished in the University of Joensuu in 1988.5 In 2002, when the 



88  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

university started degree-level education also in Western theol-
ogy, the Department of Orthodox Theology became a part of the 
newly-formed Faculty of Theology. When the Universities of 
Kuopio and Joensuu united and formed the University of East-
ern Finland, the School of Theology became a part of the Philo-
sophical Faculty of the new university.6 

In 2018, there were 470 graduate students and 73 post-
graduate students in the School of Theology. The annual intake 
into the program of Western theology is 59 students, while the 
program of Orthodox theology has the intake of 19 students a 
year. In other words, one-fourth of the beginners are students of 
Orthodox theology.

Although the students of Western and Orthodox theology 
study in separate programs, they have partly common studies: 
three academic subjects—Biblical Studies, Comparative Reli-
gion, and Religious Education—have not been divided into West-
ern and Eastern alternatives. However, there are three subjects 
in the program of Western theology which have their Orthodox 
equivalents: Church History (Orthodox Church History), System-
atic Theology (Systematic Theology and Patristics), and Practi-
cal Theology (Orthodox Practical Theology). In addition to these, 
the program of Orthodox theology provides studies of Orthodox 
Church Music, which means that both the priests and the church 
musicians of the Finnish Orthodox Church have completed a 
master’s degree in theology.7

 2.  The Collection of Orthodox Theology in the University of 
Eastern Finland Library 
The University of Eastern Finland Library provides services 
for four faculties: the Philosophical Faculty (which contains the 
School of Theology), the Faculty of Science and Forestry, the 
Faculty of Health Sciences, and the Faculty of Social Sciences 
and Business Studies. 

The theological collection of the university is mainly located 
in the Joensuu Campus Library. There are no separate collec-
tions of Western and Orthodox theology, and the shelf marks of 
the books are not arranged by the academic subjects studied in 
the School of Theology. Since the library was established in 1969, 
all shelf marks in the library have followed the Finnish version 



Papers and Presentations  89

of UDC, which was created on the basis of the old version of the 
Universal Decimal Classification. Therefore, the shelf mark 23 
stands for systematic theology, 25 is for pastoral theology, etc.

The development of the theological collection of the univer-
sity library is intertwined with the history of the School of Theol-
ogy. In the first phase (1969-1988), the theological collection of 
the library was very small; in 1986, there were only two thou-
sand books and twenty periodicals, and the collection served 
mainly the needs of the students of education.8 Because of the 
small acquisitions budget, the donations received by institutions 
and private persons played a significant role in the accession of 
the library collection.

The year 1988 was a turning point in the history of the theo-
logical collection of the library. When the education of Orthodox 
priests in Finland was transferred from Kuopio to the Univer-
sity of Joensuu, the Orthodox Seminary Collection was received 
as a donation from the Orthodox Seminary of Finland. The 
donors had expressed a wish to establish a separate library for 
the Department of Orthodox Theology, but it was not fulfilled 
because of the lack of facilities.9

The Orthodox Seminary Collection contains literature on theol-
ogy and other fields, mostly in the Finnish language. The theo-
logical part has been incorporated into the library’s collections 
and cataloged into the library’s UEF Finna database. A part of the 
collection remains uncataloged in storage at the Joensuu Campus 
Library. The uncataloged part contains, for instance, valuable 
collections of Orthodox hymns and Church Slavonic liturgies.10

In 1993, the University of Joensuu received another remark-
able collection of Orthodox literature from the Finnish Orthodox 
Church’s Public Library. This collection was not a donation, but 
the Church sent it to the university library for preservation and 
usage for academic purposes. It includes Orthodox theological 
literature and general literature. The older material is written 
mostly in Church Slavonic and Russian, while the newer material 
is in Finnish, English, and other languages. For the main part, the 
collection has been cataloged into the UEF Finna database.11

Another significant donation was the Archbishop Johannes 
Collection, which was donated to the University of Joensuu 
Library in 2000 by the Archbishop Johannes (1923–2010) of the 



90  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

Finnish Orthodox Church. It contains mainly theological litera-
ture, which has been mostly cataloged into the UEF Finna data-
base.12 The uncataloged part contains a remarkable collection of 
Orthodox theology written in Greek. 

In the years 1988-1997, the theological collection of the univer-
sity library contained predominantly Orthodox material; for 
example, the library had achieved a representative collection of 
patristics, liturgics, and Orthodox church music. When the univer-
sity started to provide education also in Western theology in 1997, 
funding for the acquisition of theological material increased 
considerably and focused specifically on Western theology 
which had the greatest deficiencies. In this process, the particu-
larly significant fields of study were pastoral psychology, Nordic 
(Lutheran) Church history, and the theology of Reformation. 

When the university started to award degrees also in West-
ern theology, and the Faculty of Theology was established in 
2002, the students of Orthodox theology became a minority in 
the faculty. Since that time, the development of the theological 
collection has implied maintaining the balance between West-
ern and Orthodox material. A constant question is how to take 
into account the wishes of both programs with regard to both 
receiving donations and making purchases of new material. 
The acquisitions are also dependent on the staff’s own activity: 
as most of the acquisition proposals are being implemented, a 
professor who is actively involved in the library can influence 
the coverage of the collection in his/her own field of study.

In the twenty-first century, the focus of acquisitions in 
most disciplines has shifted to ebooks and electronic journals. 
Although the electronic collection of the library is gradually 
replacing the print collection, this does not apply to disciplines 
like humanities and theology, the acquisition budgets of which 
are still being spent for the most part on print monographs.

 3.  My Role as a Subject Librarian: an Orthodox Collection Main-
tained by a Lutheran
As a multidisciplinary library of a multidisciplinary univer-
sity, UEF Library has considered it necessary to recruit subject 
librarians who have specialized in the disciplines studied and 
taught in the university. The library became aware of the need 



Papers and Presentations  91

for an expert of theology especially in 2002, when the Faculty 
of Theology was established. When I started to work in the UEF 
Library in 2007, I was the first employee with a degree in theol-
ogy. I was given responsibility for the theological collection, 
which means one hall in the Joensuu Campus Library where 
the print materials of history, theology, and culture studies are 
located. 

The Training and Information Services in UEF Library are 
organized on the basis of the idea of subject librarianship. A 
discipline-specific information specialist is responsible for the 
print collections and digital resources of his or her own disci-
pline from acquisition and subject indexing to evaluation and 
weeding. He/she is also responsible for discipline-specific refer-
ence work and information literacy teaching in all phases of 
studies from the first year to the doctoral thesis. In collection 
work, my most important tasks are the acquisition and subject 
indexing of theological material. Although I am responsible for 
the theological collection of the library, my acquisition requests 
are only recommendations and consulting; the final decisions 
are made by the collection department of the library, which is 
also responsible for the budget. 

My identity as a subject librarian has developed step by 
step. In the past few years, there has been discussion in the UEF 
Library about the idea of embedded librarianship, which should 
replace the former library-centered schemes of things; a subject 
librarian should be like a “mobile department library.”13 Grad-
ually, I have become conscious of my role as an “interpreter” 
between the library and the School of Theology; as I speak both 
languages, I can also help them in communication and under-
standing each other’s needs and views. However, a special chal-
lenge in my work is the fact that different subject areas—the 
Orthodox and the Western—require more or less different types 
of expertise. 

As I am a member of the Lutheran Church and have 
completed my degree in Western theology, I am, in princi-
ple, a representative of the Lutheran majority. The collections 
and research themes of Lutheran theology represent for me 
“the familiar,” to which I don’t need to pay special attention. In 
contrast, Orthodox theology represents “the other” that opens 



92  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

up more slowly. Therefore, especially in the beginning, my work 
on the collections was slowed down by the difficulty of under-
standing Orthodox thinking, and I had to explore subject matters 
that where more or less unfamiliar to me: the writings of Syrian 
Church Fathers, the theology of icons, the sacraments of Holy 
Orders and Unction, neums in Medieval Russian church music, 
and the significance of the saints and the God-bearer in Ortho-
dox faith. Fortunately, I had studied Russian before; a signifi-
cant part of the Orthodox collection consists of books written in 
Russian or other Slavic languages, especially Church Slavonic. 

As the majority of the acquisition requests comes from the 
department of Western theology, it is necessary to keep the 
needs of Orthodox theology in mind. This requires continuous 
collaboration with the staff of the School of Theology and keep-
ing up to date regarding the research that is done both in the 
Western and the Orthodox programs of the school.

As a subject librarian, I must often ask myself if I should 
maintain a collection that contains everything about Orthodox 
theology or a collection that is actively used. As the facilities are 
limited, why preserve books which nobody seems to read? When 
the accession to the collection of theology is about 500 new 
books a year, it is, of course, necessary to weed older material. In 
some disciplines, this can be easier, but the problem of theology 
is that the literature never becomes outdated. The collections 
are weeded mainly on the basis of the circulation statistics: if a 
book has been borrowed only once or twice after the year 2000, 
it belongs among the first books to weed. Because of the minor-
ity status of Orthodox theology, I am very careful in weeding the 
Orthodox collection, although the weeding process does not 
mean that a book totally disappears from the Finnish library 
system: it is sent to the National Repository Library which 
receives, stores, and offers material for the use of other libraries 
in Finland.14

	4.	 	The	UEF	Collection	Classification	Code	as	a	Tool	for	Evalua-
tion, 2008-2017
A constant problem concerning the evaluation of the theologi-
cal collection in the Joensuu Campus Library is the difficulty of 
separating the Western and Orthodox materials from each other. 

92  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS



Papers and Presentations  93

This problem is related to the question of whether all branches 
of Western and Orthodox theology are equally taken into account 
in the collection politics. As stated before, the theological collec-
tion in our library is not divided into Western and Orthodox 
sections, and the UDC-based classification system we have used 
makes no distinction between Western and Orthodox theology. 
Also, the academic subjects taught and studied in the School of 
Theology have no direct equivalents in the former classification 
system and shelf marks used in our library.

The UEF collection classification code was invented in 2007 
by a working group set up by the University of Joensuu Library. 
The purpose of the UEF code was to serve as a tool of evaluation 
of the discipline-specific collections in the library. In this system, 
every new print title acquired in the library was given a classifi-
cation code, which followed the disciplines taught and studied in 
the university. This made it possible to track the increase in titles, 
the number of loans, and the total number of titles according to 
the subject areas.15 As regards the theological collection, the UEF 
classification codes were created according to academic subjects 
taught in the School of Theology. This decision not only made it 
possible to make a distinction between Western and Orthodox 
material, but it also allowed me analyze every academic subject 
separately when I evaluated our collection.

The UEF code came into use in the University of Joensuu 
Library in 2008 and, after the merger of the Universities of Joen-
suu and Kuopio, in the University of Eastern Finland Library in 
2010. It was not used retrospectively because the main purpose 
of the code was to evaluate acquisition and accessions. So, the 
UEF code was added only into the records of newly acquired 
titles. At the same time, the library abandoned UDK codes (the 
Finnish version of UDC) as a tool of classification.16 In 2011, the 
Library of Congress accepted the UEF code to be used in the 084 
MARC field, and the code was added into the list of Source Codes, 
Vocabularies, and Rules.17

In the UEF code table, the subject areas of theology were 
marked with eleven codes, which were equivalent to the academic 
subjects taught at the School of Theology. The following chart 
contains the list of UEF codes of theology, the corresponding 



94  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

subject areas, and the number of print theological titles tagged 
with the UEF code by the end of the year 2017.

UEF CODE SUBJECT AREA
NUMBER OF PRINT BOOKS 

ACQUIRED 2008-2017

UEF:20 Theology. General 221

UEF:20eks Biblical Studies 1,150

UEF:20his Church History 577

UEF:20hisor Orthodox Church History 306

UEF:20kas Religious Education 55

UEF:20kay Practical Theology 
(Western)

675

UEF:20kayor Practical Theology 
(Orthodox)

238

UEF:20musor Orthodox Church Music 117

UEF:20sys Systematic Theology 
(Western)

670

UEF:20sysor Systematic Theology and 
Patristics (Orthodox)

253

UEF:20usk Comparative Religion 989

According to the chart, there were in all 5,251 titles acquired 
into the collection of theology in the years 2008-2017. As the 
collection contains approximately 25,000 print books, this 
means that one-fifth of them have been marked with the UEF 
code. The chart also shows that 914 items fall under the category 
of Orthodox theology, which is only 17.4 % of the total. However, 
it should be noted that over 40% of the books can be considered 
as ”neutral,” neither especially ”Western” nor ”Orthodox.” 

When attention is paid to the UEF codes of Orthodox theol-
ogy (20hisor, 20kayor, 20sysor, and 20musor), and they are 
compared with the corresponding codes of Western theology 
(20his, 20kay, and 20sys), it can be seen that the number of West-
ern titles is about two or three times greater than that of Ortho-
dox titles. On the other hand, the chart shows that all academic 
subjects in the School of Theology, both Western and Orthodox, 
have been taken into account in the acquisition policy of the 
library. The annual data on additions to the theological collection  



Papers and Presentations  95

have also determined which subject areas should be borne in 
mind more than before. For instance, if some year the number 
of acquired books about Orthodox church music seemed small, 
I had to consider the reason for it and take it into account when 
making acquisition requests.

During the years when UEF code was in use as a tool of evalu-
ation, one general trend was visible above all: a continuous 
decrease in the number of acquired print books. The Faculty 
of Science and Forestry and the Faculty of Health Sciences, in 
particular, represent the branches of sciences in which research 
is practically no longer published as print monographs. More-
over, the acquisition policy of the library prefers ebooks; if 
a book is available as an electronic version, the library will 
purchase it instead of the print version. As the chart below 
shows, the total increase in print books decreased from 7,551 
titles in 2011 to 4,188 titles in 2016:18

YEAR 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Total increase of 
titles

7,551 7,102 7,065 5,407 4,678 4,188

Philosophical 
Faculty

2,832 2,677 2,920 2,166 1,998 1,734

School of Theology 
(part of the Phil.)

546
(7% of 

total 
increase)

501
(7%)

680
(9.6%)

500
(9.2%)

448
(9.6%)

469
(11.2%)

However, as can be seen, the number of titles acquired in the 
field of theology remained almost the same or decreased only 
slightly during the given six years. As a result, theological books 
as a proportion of the total increase in titles grew from 7% in 
2011 to 11.2% in 2016. This can be seen either as evidence of 
the conservativeness of theologians who prefer printed mono-
graphs or as a result of the fact that, in many cases, an electronic 
version of a print book is just not available. In the collection of 
theology in the UEF Library, this problem applies especially to 
books published in German or Russian.

The introduction of the UEF code also made it possible to 
explore the circulation of books in relation to their UEF codes. 



96  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

The following chart shows how the loans of theological books 
were related to the number of the titles in 2013,

UEF 
CODE 20hisor 20kayor 20sysor 20musor 20his 20kay 20sys

Number of 
titles 2013

208 160 137 50 392 431 418

Loans 
2013

60 31 35 20 159 191 134

Loans/titles 
2013

0.29 0.29 0.26 0.20 0.41 0.44 0.32

According to these figures, even the newly acquired theologi-
cal titles were not among the most borrowed research books in 
the UEF Library. The most borrowed subjects by the UEF code 
in 2013 were Special Education (UEF:37ERI; 1.75 loans/title) 
and Psychology (UEF:1599; 0.96 loans/title). Furthermore, the 
circulation of Orthodox theology books was remarkably lower 
than that of Western books: the average loans per title of Ortho-
dox theology was 0.26, while the average of Western theology 
books was 0.39. This can be explained by the smaller number of 
students and researchers of Orthodox theology. However, I did 
not decide to reduce the acquisitions of Orthodox theology in 
favor of Western theology, as I remembered the duty of UEF as a 
maintainer of Orthodox research and studies in Finland.

As the reader has noticed, I have described the use of the UEF 
collection classification code in past tense; the UEF code is not 
in use any more because the library decided to abandon it by the 
end of 2017. The reason for this was the fact that it was no longer 
sensible to concentrate on print collections in the evaluation 
process as an ever growing majority of new books are purchased 
in electronic form and often as large collections provided by 
the publishers. In my opinion, however, the UEF code would 
still have been a usable tool for the evaluation of the theological 
collection because of the dominance of print books in theology 
as compared to other disciplines in the university.

 5. A Glance at Master’s and Doctoral Theses
One way to examine if the collection of theology in our library 
meets the needs of students is by comparing the contents of the 



Papers and Presentations  97

collection with the subjects the students are studying. The bibli-
ographies of master’s and doctoral theses can also give us infor-
mation about the coverage of our collection. 

In the years 2010-2018, there were a total of forty-four 
master’s theses and five doctoral theses on Orthodox theology 
written at the University of Eastern Finland. These numbers do 
not include theses written by Orthodox students on Compara-
tive Religion, Biblical Studies, and Religious Education, as these 
subjects are common with the students of Western theology.

The academic subjects of the master’s theses on Orthodox 
theology were divided so that half of them (twenty-two theses) 
were written on practical theology. The second most popular 
subject was Orthodox church music (eleven theses; 25%), while 
the remaining 25% were divided into systematic theology and 
Patristics, and Orthodox church history. When these numbers 
are compared with the corresponding UEF codes and titles 
acquired in 2008–2017, their order is opposite: the first in order 
was Orthodox church history (20hisor; 306 titles), the second 
was systematic theology and Patristics (20sysor; 253 titles), the 
third was practical theology (20kayor; 238 titles), and the last 
was Orthodox church music (20musor; 117 titles). So, I have 
concluded that I must pay special attention to the collection of 
Orthodox music when making acquisition requests.

In the years 2012-2018, there were four doctoral theses on 
Orthodox theology published in the UEF Electronic Publica-
tions series. There was one thesis on systematic theology19, one 
on Church history20, one on Church music21, and one on practi-
cal theology.22 Because I was interested in the question of how 
many sources in their bibliographies are available in our library 
collection, I made a search in the UEF Finna database. Below I 
explain my results.

The result of my search was that almost all (95 %) of the 
sources in the bibliography of Timo Hirvonen’s thesis are avail-
able in the UEF Library. Also, most sources (81.5%) used by 
Eeva Raunistola-Juutinen are available in the library or on the 
web. Half (52.5 %) of the sources used by Irina Karvonen could 
be found in UEF Finna or on the web, while only 31.8 % of the 
sources used by Maria Takala-Roszczenko were available in the 
same way. However, it does not necessarily mean that we have 



98  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

a notably poor collection of Orthodox church music, for Takala-
Roszczenko has used in her thesis mainly Polish and Ukrainian 
sources, while most research at UEF has concentrated on Finnish 
and Russian church music. 

 6. Conclusion
The preceding chapters were a kind of retrospective; the UEF 
code was designed for evaluating the collection of print books, 
but it was finally discontinued because of the fast growing 
number of ebooks and electronic journals in the collections. 
After the year 2010, the focus of the acquisition of books has 
radically moved from print books to ebooks. This change also 
concerns the collection of theology: a search in UEF Finna data-
base with the keyword “patristics” gives as a result 175 printed 
books and 141 ebooks, and the result list of a search with the 
keyword ”orthodoxy” contains 186 print books and 431 ebooks. 

The print collection of theology was created and grown espe-
cially in the 1980s and 1990s. Print publications, especially 
monographs, still make up a significant portion of the material 
acquired for the collection of theology. So, this phase does not 
belong to the past. 

In the 2000s, more and more theological books and journals 
have been acquired in digital form. Reference and full text data-
bases have also become an important part of the collection. The 
university has purchased or subscribed access to ATLA Religion 

PRACTICAL 
THEOLOGY YEAR

ACADEMIC 
SUBJECT

NUMBER 
OF 

SOURCES

SOURCES 
FOUND  
IN UEF 
FINNA

SOURCES 
NOT 

FOUND IN 
UEF FINNA 
OR ON THE 

WEB

OPEN 
SOURCES 
ON THE 

WEB

Raunistola-
Juutinen

2012 Systematic 
theology 

353 240 65 48

Karvonen 2013 Church 
history

171 65 81 25

Takala-
Roszczenko

2013 Church  
music

264 62 180 22

Hirvonen 2017 Practical 
theology

80 76 4 0



Papers and Presentations  99

Database, Proquest’s Luther’s Works in WWW and Acta Sanc-
torum, Brill’s Religion Past and Present, Textual History of the 
Bible and Gregorii Nysseni Opera Online, and de Gruyter’s Ency-
clopedia of Bible and its Reception Online. The most recently 
purchased database was Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. In the 
acquisition of ebooks, theological material is mostly acquired 
automatically within EBSCO and Ebook Central subscriptions. 
An electronic library of the databases of theology can be built 
this way, but it is not easy to estimate how their content meets 
the special needs of the Orthodox theologians. Another problem 
is that in some cases, expensive databases have been acquired 
for a small number of users. 

When considering the future, it is important ot ask what is 
the role of academic libraries when print and licensed elec-
tronic collections are replaced by open access digital archives 
of digitized or born-digital books and articles. As the main task 
of the print library was warehousing, and the digital library has 
a role as e-journal and ebook supplier, now libraries have taken 
the role of an e-resource counselor with new tasks like digitiz-
ing and publishing services.23 UEF is committed to open access 
policy and has started publishing research in open access form. 
The university’s own publications and serials are all published 
on the open web, and parallel publishing of the articles of the 
researchers at UEF has been started as a project of the library. 

Some departments have also planned to digitize their own 
serials and publish them on the web retrospectively. There have 
been discussions between the library and the School of Theology 
about digitizing their old publications like the journal Ortodok-
sia, the latest volumes of which have been published open access. 
There have also been discussions with the New Valaam monastery 
about digitizing their old, precious Russian and Church Slavonic 
books; this project would have great cultural significance. With 
these steps, we move towards the dream of all students and 
researchers, when all old publications have been digitized and all 
new research is published open access all over the world. 

In this connection, I must ask myself the question, “What will 
my role as a theological librarian be in the future?” Information 
retrieval teaching, counselling, and information services will 



100  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

be my tasks also in the changing online environment. The most 
important thing is to help everybody to find the material they 
need, regardless of whether it is a part of the library collection or 
it is on the open web.24

NOTES

1 “Population,” Statistics Finland, http://www.stat.fi/tup/suoluk/
suoluk_vaesto_en.html.

2 “Orthodox Church of Finland,” Britannica Academic, Ency-
clopædia Britannica, 7 Apr. 2009. Academic-eb-com.ezproxy.
uef.fi:2443/levels/collegiate/article/Orthodox-Church-of-
Finland/57482.

3 Matti Kotiranta, About the School of Theology, http://www.uef.fi/en/
web/teol/tietoa-osastosta.

4 “A Pact Between the Ministry of Education and Culture and the 
University of Eastern Finland [in Finnish],” http://minedu.fi/
documents/1410845/3992810/It%C3%A4-Suomen+yliopisto+s
opimus+2017-2020.

5 Petri Piiroinen, Suomen ortodoksinen pappisseminaari 1918-1978 
(Joensuu: Suomen ortodoksisen pappisseminaarin oppilasyh-
distys, 1978), 25-33.

6 Kotiranta, About the School of Theology.
7 “Orthodox Theology,” http://www.uef.fi/en/web/teol/ortodok-

sinen-teologia.
8 “A Record of a Negotiation Between the Joensuu University Library 

and the Library of the New Valaam Monastery,” 30 May 1986, 
unpublished document from the archives of the UEF Library.

9 Jenni Mikkonen, “An Interview of the Librarian Tapani 
Toivanen,” 23 May 2005, unpublished document from the 
archives of the UEF Library.

10 “Special collections,” UEF Library homepage, http://www.uef.fi/
web/kirjasto/kokoelmat/erikoiskokoelmat.

11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
13 See Kathy Dreves and Nadine Hoffman, “Academic Embed-

ded Librarianship: An Introduction,” Public Services Quarterly 6 
(2010): 75-82.

http://www.stat.fi/tup/suoluk/suoluk_vaesto_en.html
http://www.stat.fi/tup/suoluk/suoluk_vaesto_en.html
http://www.uef.fi/en/web/teol/tietoa-osastosta
http://www.uef.fi/en/web/teol/tietoa-osastosta
http://minedu.fi/documents/1410845/3992810/It%C3%A4-Suomen+yliopisto+sopimus+2017-2020
http://minedu.fi/documents/1410845/3992810/It%C3%A4-Suomen+yliopisto+sopimus+2017-2020
http://minedu.fi/documents/1410845/3992810/It%C3%A4-Suomen+yliopisto+sopimus+2017-2020
http://www.uef.fi/en/web/teol/ortodoksinen-teologia
http://www.uef.fi/en/web/teol/ortodoksinen-teologia
http://www.uef.fi/web/kirjasto/kokoelmat/erikoiskokoelmat
http://www.uef.fi/web/kirjasto/kokoelmat/erikoiskokoelmat


Papers and Presentations  101

14 “The National Repository Library: Aims and Function,” http://
www.varastokirjasto.fi/aims-and-function/.

15 Kaarina Meriläinen, Riitta Porkka, and Laura Parikka, ”UEF-
aihealuekoodisto evaluoinnin välineenä Itä-Suomen yliopiston 
kirjastossa,” Signum (2012).

16 Ibid.
17 “Library of Congress: Technical Notice” (February 09, 2011), 

https://www.loc.gov/marc/relators/tn110209src.html.
18 Data collected and analyzed by Mikko Meriläinen (UEF Library).
19 Eeva Raunistola-Juutinen, Äiti ja nunna: Kirkkojen Maailman-

neuvoston naisten vuosikymmenen ortodoksiset naiskuvat (Joen-
suu: University of Eastern Finland, 2012), http://urn.fi/
URN:ISBN:978-952-61-0972-5.

20 Irina Karvonen, Pyhän Aleksanteri Syväriläisen koulukunta: 1500-
luvun luostarihistoriaa vai 1800-luvun venäläiskansallista tulkin-
taa? (Joensuu: University of Eastern Finland, 2013), http://
epublications.uef.fi/pub/urn_isbn_978-952-61-1132-2/urn_
isbn_978-952-61-1132-2.pdf.

21 Maria Takala-Roszczenko, The ‘Latin’ Within the ‘Greek’: The Feast of 
the Holy Eucharist in the Context of Ruthenian Eastern Rite Liturgical 
Evolution in the 16th-18th Centuries (Joensuu: University of Eastern 
Finland, 2013), http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-61-1302-9.

22 Timo Hirvonen, Suomenkielinen ennenpyhitettyjen lahjain liturgia 
- kirkkopolitiikan pyörteistä liturgiseksi liikehdinnäksi (Joensuu: 
University of Eastern Finland, 2017), http://epublications.uef.
fi/pub/urn_isbn_978-952-61-2652-4/urn_isbn_978-952-61-
2652-4.pdf.

23 See Jarmo Saarti, “Collection Policies for the Post-Digital Era 
of Academic Publishing—Future Scenarios For the Academic 
Libraries,” in Repositories for Print: Strategies for Access, Preservation 
and Democracy, ed. Pentti Vattulainen and Steve O’Connor (Berlin; 
Boston: de Gruyter Saur, 2018), 110-17.

24 See Janine Schmidt, “Developing a Library Collection Today: 
Revisiting ‘Collection Evaluation, the Conspectus and Chimeras 
in Library Cooperation,’” Australian Academic & Research Librar-
ies 47, no. 4 (2016): 190-95, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full
/10.1080/00048623.2016.1250598.

http://www.varastokirjasto.fi/aims-and-function/
http://www.varastokirjasto.fi/aims-and-function/
https://www.loc.gov/marc/relators/tn110209src.html
http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-61-0972-5
http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-61-0972-5
http://epublications.uef.fi/pub/urn_isbn_978-952-61-1132-2/urn_isbn_978-952-61-1132-2.pdf
http://epublications.uef.fi/pub/urn_isbn_978-952-61-1132-2/urn_isbn_978-952-61-1132-2.pdf
http://epublications.uef.fi/pub/urn_isbn_978-952-61-1132-2/urn_isbn_978-952-61-1132-2.pdf
http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-61-1302-9
http://epublications.uef.fi/pub/urn_isbn_978-952-61-2652-4/urn_isbn_978-952-61-2652-4.pdf
http://epublications.uef.fi/pub/urn_isbn_978-952-61-2652-4/urn_isbn_978-952-61-2652-4.pdf
http://epublications.uef.fi/pub/urn_isbn_978-952-61-2652-4/urn_isbn_978-952-61-2652-4.pdf
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00048623.2016.1250598
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00048623.2016.1250598

