













































What About the Aqueduct?


134  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

What About the Aqueduct?
Does Decolonizing the Library Mean 
Deaccessioning Augustine?
David Schmersal, Access and Instruction Librarian, Austin Presbyterian Theo-
logical Seminary
Yesan Sellan, Chief Librarian, South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies
Daniel Smith, Theological Librarian and Educator
Kris Veldheer, Director of the Paul Bechtold Library, Catholic Theological 
Union

ABSTRACT The Public Services Interest Group invited three panelists to 
respond to three broad questions pertaining to decolonizing theological 
libraries: What are you doing, what could/should we be doing, and what 
would you do (in an ideal theological library/seminary/school of theology)? 
In addressing these questions, the panelists discussed what decolonizing 
looks like in their respective contexts, collection development, collaboration 
with faculty, and desiderata for further change. 

INTRODUCTION

Theological librarians have become more aware of some of the more 
complex and troubling aspects of the Western Christian heritage 
represented by many of our institutions and collections. Such trends 
compel us to ask challenging questions, such as “How do we recog-
nize which voices are missing from our collections?”; “How might 
we (in collaboration with faculty?) encourage students to encoun-
ter some of these missing voices, while also ensuring they develop 
a familiarity with theologians of traditionally recognized historical 
significance?”; and “When might de-colonizing our collections run 
the risk of censorship?” Given constraints in space (i.e., library shelv-
ing is finite) and time (students do not have time to read everything), 
“How do we prioritize?”; and “Who should decide?” 

In this session, three panelists Kris Veldheer (Director of the Paul 
Bechtold Library, Catholic Theological Union), Yesan Sellan (Chief Li-
brarian, South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies), and Dan-



PANEL PRESENTATIONS  135

iel Smith (theological librarian and educator) responded to these and 
similar questions, subsumed under three broad three headings: What 
are you doing?, What could/should we be doing?, and What would you 
do (in an ideal theological library/seminary/school of theology)?  The 
presenters prefaced these remarks with a few brief points of prolegom-
ena, and we ended the session with a question-and-answer session.

PROLEGOMENA

Before responding to the questions noted above, the panelists clari-
fied and emphasized three points. First, while recognizing the terms 
decolonial and postcolonial commonly represent different contexts, 
the former is largely used in Latin American contexts and the latter 
is more commonly used in Asia and African. In this session the pan-
elists used the terms synonymously. Second, the panelists wanted 
to emphasize that decolonizing your library is an iterative process 
that constantly requires reexamination, not a simple matter of get-
ting rid of a few particularly offensive books. Finally, for those who 
might be wondering, “Why this session? Why are we doing this?” we 
have two basic reasons: First, for many of us, this is a matter of jus-
tice, that we are seeking to heed the voices of those that have too long 
been silenced as a way of “casting the mighty from their thrones and 
lifting up the lowly.” Second, for many of us who care deeply about 
the church and see our work as service to the church, it behooves us 
to pay attention to the voices of our brothers and sisters in places in 
the world where the church is vibrant and growing. 

THREE QUESTIONS

In responding to the questions posed in this session, the panelists 
centered their discussion around three broad questions, each ad-
dressed in turn by each panelist:

What are you doing?
• What does decolonizing look like in the context of your 

theological library and/or institution?
• How do you familiarize yourself with the works of theolo-

gians from the majority world and other under-represented 
voices?

What could/should we be doing?
• How do we recognize which voices are missing from our 

collections?



136  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

• How might we better connect the students, faculty, and 
guest researchers at our libraries with the works of schol-
ars from the majority world and other under-represented 
groups?

What would you do (in the best of all possible worlds)?
• In an ideal theological library/seminary/school or theology, 

how might you imagine a collection and course of study 
that encourages students to encounter some of these miss-
ing voices, while also ensuring they develop a familiarity 
with theologians of traditionally recognized historical sig-
nificance?

Question 1: What are you doing? 
What does decolonizing look like in the context of your theological 
library and/or institution?

Kris Veldheer
My very presence up here is a colonial act because I have the privi-
lege to travel, I have the privilege of being a library director. And 
that is something that I need to acknowledge in the approach that I 
bring to my work. But in my library of context, I see myself as hav-
ing three roles: I am a keeper of knowledge in that I keep books or 
whatever knowledge is these days; I am a producer of knowledge 
because I produce knowledge that goes to my students and I work 
with my students in producing their knowledge; and I am a pro-
vider of knowledge, in that I provide them with books but also the 
context in which they work. At CTU, what I’m working on is not to 
bring stuff out of the collection without giving it a lot of thought. So, 
I’m not going to do just a bit of deaccessioning of Augustine from the 
library. But rather I am trying very, very hard to ask people from dif-
ferent places to literally contextualize things, asking my students in 
my keeper role, “How does your culture see these texts?” because 
many of them have been taught through these texts. Because of the 
spread of the Western colonial way of doing education, I see that 
some of the students I work with who are from parts of Africa and 
Asia know the classics better than I do. And they can quote Augus-
tine chapter and verse, and I can’t. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense 
to take some of that stuff out, but rather to help them understand 
how they work with it. 

And then also help them, in my secondary role as a producer of 
knowledge, to produce knowledge with them. This means asking, 



PANEL PRESENTATIONS  137

“How does their context interrelate with the sources?” It also means 
checking my own beliefs about what are good sources. People come 
to the reference desk every day, and they look around and they say, 
“Give me good stuff.” I don’t. I can’t do that anymore. I can’t give them 
the good stuff. I need them to work with me on finding the good stuff, 
helping each other identify what will work for their context. 

Finally, in my role as a provider of information, I work very, very 
hard to make sure that the library’s materials, and not just the mate-
rials but also the way we do business, incorporates what works for 
them. So that’s what decolonizing looks like. A lot of what we’re going 
to do in the future at CTU has to do with the fact that I just finished 
my DMin on decolonizing and post-colonial thought, specifically, 
about knowledge and justice in colonial and postcolonial thought 
in the library. So stay tuned; we’re rolling stuff out. 

Daniel Smith
When I think about decolonization, I think about some sort of inten-
tional decentering. I also think of partnerships with marginalized 
communities, which oftentimes means making space, stepping aside, 
because I know that people who look like me have been at the center 
for a very long time and have formed what libraries look like. I think 
it’s also a matter of perfect, purposeful, deep listening, to students, to 
faculty, to staff to those who are using our libraries, to see how they 
understand their work, and how that can intersect with, inform, and 
enhance what we’re doing in the library. I also think that it involves 
some difficult acknowledgments of things that we’ve done wrong, 
and things that we’re continuing to do wrong. As people of faith, it 
also involves repentance, and maybe a covenant to do something 
new, to act in new ways or to turn in a new direction. 

One thing I’ve I tried to remain very cognizant of is featuring diverse 
works in library displays. When you’re doing a certain display theme, 
it’s easy to gravitate toward major theologians and biblical scholars. 
But sometimes you have to go out and look on OCLC, on WorldCat, and 
see what folks are reading. This may involve intentionally purchasing 
items for your display. It’s so easy to rush and haphazardly put things 
together and just find whatever is available in the collection and move 
on. But I think if we’re intentional about decolonizing our collections 
and enhancing them, it may mean that we need to take that time to plan 
a little bit more in advance for our displays, and to purchase content 
that may augment and supplement what we already have. 



138  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

Another thing I have found helpful is befriending students. If 
you’re involved on social media, I find that a lot of our students, es-
pecially our doctoral students but also some of our more advanced 
master’s students, readily share what they’re reading. I have found 
that very helpful, particularly because oftentimes they may be read-
ing something new, something we may not have in our collection. I 
also have tried to pay attention to interlibrary loan requests because 
that tells me some of the gaps we have in our collection and I realize 
we should have that material too, because our students (and faculty) 
are clearly interested in it. In conjunction with befriending student 
groups, I also try to join some of the local seminary groups, because I 
find that students often share the type of reading that they’re doing, 
the thoughts that they’re having, and the type of research that they’re 
engaging in. Whereas a research consultation with someone gives me 
a limited view into that one person, being around student groups gives 
me a new perspective or enhances the things I know about students’ 
research. We have quite a few centers on campus, so I have also tried 
to work intentionally with some of them, such as the Center for Asian 
ministry, the center for Latina Latin X ministry, and a sacred work, 
which is an LGBTQ student group. Listening to and partnering with 
those folks, I think, is very helpful for me, not the least in this work. 

I have also been part of some specific projects that I think have 
been helpful around decolonial work. For example, some of the li-
braries where I’ve been before had artifacts present in the library 
that have complicated histories. In one of my previous positions, 
the library had a mummy on display. Working intentionally with 
faculty, staff, students, trustees, and external constituents, we began 
to explore what it meant to have these artifacts and how we should 
move forward. Things like land acknowledgments are another ex-
ample. We’re continuing to wrestle with that sort of reality, but it’s 
an intentional part of the decolonizing work that needs to be done.  
Something else we do all the time as librarians, reviewing course 
syllabi to see what required and supplementary readings are being 
assigned, can also provide opportunities essential for decolonial 
work. By this, I mean that decolonial work should be done individu-
ally; it’s something that should be done collectively in a community 
because we all bring perspectives and can enhance that work. I’m 
currently fortunate to be on the Atla Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion 
Committee, and I’m looking forward to some of the work that we’ll be 
able to do there. These are, of course, just a few things that I’ve done 
intentionally around decolonial work, but I hope that that’s helpful.



PANEL PRESENTATIONS  139

Yesan Selan
Let me come to the point: What does decolonizing look like in my 
own contexts? Being a librarian of the South Asia Institute of Ad-
vanced Christian studies, I see we have a greater responsibility as 
an institution to become the voice of the voiceless, by keeping our 
library collections balanced and strategically adding resources. For 
example, if a scholar needs a resource that costs five grand, asking 
who also has done similar work as we do here. Forming close con-
nections with research scholars has helped me understand their 
own bibliographical needs and seeing what they have collected so 
far, also has helped me understand how to supplement my library 
resources, so that research needs are met. In my local library context, 
we have networks that also help me to keep the resources that are 
to be heard by many. As my fellow panelists mentioned, quite often 
Asian libraries largely depend on western theological resources. As 
an institution, we have a center, for which I was a coordinator for 
some time, to support efforts to produce indigenous scholarly works. 
We hosted seminars, conferences, and workshops and as a result a 
couple of titles were published. This was a collaborative effort among 
scholars and librarians. 

I seek to ensure that my library collections reflect Asian think-
ing, impulses, and close collaboration with faculty members and 
their teaching. Faculty and other stakeholders help me understand 
their needs as they try to address their own research needs. And I 
also consciously seek to include publications that are coming from 
some of those places in the northeast where hardly anything is avail-
able, as well as works from the underrepresented areas, like tribal 
communities and works on women’s studies, are being strategical-
ly added to our library collections. So, as an institution, we have a 
larger responsibility to the wider scholarly community, just as, as a 
librarian, I have a responsibility to keep my faculty informed. And 
in return, they consciously work on their course offerings to reflect 
Asian thinking.

How do you familiarize yourself with the works of theologians 
from the majority world and other under-represented voices?

Kris Veldheer
I think I could answer this question in three ways. First, I have pub-
lishers who found me; I didn’t find them. I have a publisher in Delhi, 



140  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

who regularly emails me a list of things. It’s a fairly Catholic organi-
zation. They allow me to order from them directly and pay them di-
rectly in US dollars, which is kind of unique, and get material printed 
in English, but all the books come from that context. That not only 
supports how I want to do some of my collection development, but 
also supports other voices, and other forms of publishing. I think 
that is really important, and I am looking for similar situations, for 
example, with publishers in Central and South America, but I can’t 
find them as readily. So that’s my first thing: trying to find publish-
ers or book distributors outside of my usual sources. In developing a 
relationship with a publisher in India, and I will use them regularly 
to get material from that part of the world, rather than order some-
thing similar from Oxford. 

Second, I am privileged to have a faculty who travels widely. This 
year, some of my faculty will be in Australia, New Zealand, and lots 
of parts of Asia. I have a standing commitment to them: if they bring 
me something back from those trips, I reimburse them for the ma-
terial. So periodically, books just trickle in from the four corners of 
the world because as faculty members are traveling, they’re finding 
books in their areas of study, what’s important to them, but in dif-
ferent voices. That’s something that is still in development, but it’s 
really cool to do that. And in some ways, I do the same thing with 
students. CTU comprises 40% international students, or students who 
were born in the United States, but were raised in ethnic communi-
ties living in the US. So, I tell our students, if you bring me something 
from your community, I will do my best to get you reimbursed, if you 
don’t want to just outright donate it to me, because I believe those 
voices need to be represented in the collection. So that’s a couple of 
ways I do it this. 

Third, in terms of representing and familiarizing myself, I made a 
commitment to CTU to go to AAR/SBL every year. Mostly I go because 
it allows me to shop with my faculty. I take them to the Exhibit Hall 
floor, and I receive texts and emails throughout the entire confer-
ence about things they are finding and things they are hearing from 
other parts of the world in the sessions they attend. This helps me 
globalize the collection. It helps me rub shoulders with publishers 
and find out who’s doing cool stuff, who’s adding new editors from 
Africa or Asia. And even if they are not a Catholic voice, I want to 
talk to that publisher. I have one in particular, Langham, that I stop 
by every year because they do good stuff. And, they have cool stuff. 



PANEL PRESENTATIONS  141

Langham, while mostly evangelical, also pulls a lot of Catholic ma-
terial out of Asia that I can use. My library isn’t exclusively Catholic, 
but you can’t have “Catholic” in your name without having Catholic 
resources on your shelves. So, those are the three main ways that 
I’m working around the fact that about 70 to 80% of the books that I 
buy are all from European and North American publishers. So that’s 
some of the ways I work with getting books that are not from the big 
publishers, if you will.

Daniel Smith
Elaborating on some of the things I said a little bit earlier, when it 
comes to partnering with faculty, I have been fortunate to work with 
faculty from many diverse perspectives and backgrounds. And I 
have found that it’s really helpful to intentionally partner with fac-
ulty in this work. For the most part, I’ve always found faculty to be 
very friendly, especially when you’re asking about their research. 
And as you’re engaging with their research, you want to find ways 
of supporting them as well as their students and the research that 
they’re doing. That has been really helpful for me when it comes to 
familiarizing myself with decolonial work. But it also is a way of be-
ginning to familiarize myself, and continuing to familiarize myself, 
with theologians and majority world theologians. One of the things 
I find most helpful is taking or auditing classes, and I hope that most 
of your institutions offer this benefit. It allows me to keep abreast 
of what’s happening in the theological and religious studies worlds, 
and it also gives me connections with students and faculty. Those of 
us or who have been in seminary or earned another degree know 
that as you look through the course catalog there are only so many 
classes you can take. So now when I see a class I always wanted to 
take, I have the opportunity to take and enhance my overall learn-
ing in general. 

Like Kris, I take the chance to explore publishers’ websites and 
take time to just flip through all those catalogs they send us (I feel like 
they spend so much money and paper on those) to see what’s happen-
ing, to see where the conversations are. Hopefully we all have some 
time, maybe probably outside of work, to read some of the articles 
and books around things like decoloniality, decolonizing libraries, 
decolonial theology, decolonial Biblical Studies, etc. As I always tell 
my students, always look at the bibliography, because that’s where 
you’re really going to find so much to enhance your conversation. 



142  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

You can see who authors are in conversation with. I usually then go 
back and ask, “Do we have those people in our collection? Do we have 
anything written by this person, let alone that particular resource?” 
I find that sort of work very helpful for me.

Yesan Selan
As I have to process my responsibility as an individual, so also, as 
an institution, we have two responsibilities: to make other voices 
heard, and to produce indigenous scholarly works for the use of 
the rest of the world. This is one reason the Center was established: 
to encourage the publication of works by indigenous authors. How 
do I familiarize myself with the world’s key sources? I rely on my 
faculty, colleagues, my research scholars, and the institution’s and 
organization’s publishers, who closely work with me in many ways, 
because I represent both the library and my institution. I help them 
by hearing about what they do, and they help me let their voices be 
heard outside of their local contexts through conference announce-
ments, the publication of the literature, and so on. Our faculty mem-
bers also consciously ensure their student consult books by Asian 
authors, and if they have any issues, the library plays a major role 
in procuring resources for them, including efforts to conserve and/
or publish such resources.

Question Two: What could/should we be doing? 
How do we recognize which voices are missing from our collec-
tions?

Kris Veldheer
I laughed, because I have asked myself that question, a great deal: 
“Who’s not here?” or “Who’s not at the table?” From a collection de-
velopment standpoint, I have become a real fan of evidence-based 
acquisition, because it allows me to see what my students are using. 
Mostly right now I’m doing it through JSTOR. At the end of the fiscal 
year, which is the end of the academic year, I get a list from JSTOR of 
which titles got the most hits. This allows me to see which titles the 
students really like and want. And I’m assuming because of the di-
versity within my own student body that I’m going to get some gems 
or jewels that they really want. I can’t tell you who has been picking 
these, but if a particular title gets 40 hits or whatever, it’s high on my 



PANEL PRESENTATIONS  143

purchase list. And we usually go right down the list from JSTOR un-
less we’ve already bought it. So that’s one kind of tool. 

As I mentioned above, a publisher I use a lot for voices from other 
parts of the world is Langham.  I like them because they’re small, 
but they also have editors in different parts of the world who are 
indigenous to those areas. Langham is out of Britain, and they do 
great work for me, even though they are not from traditions that I 
traditionally represent. 

What else are we doing to prevent missing voices from the collec-
tion? I’m engaging with students from different contexts and watch-
ing how my students interact with the library. A quick example, the 
other day I was in the library on a Saturday which is not normal for 
me. The Saturday student worker was there. I walked in expecting 
to see this person behind the circulation desk, which is where tra-
ditionally I would have thought I would have found them. Instead, 
I found them sitting on the couch eating Doritos. We allow food in 
the library, so that’s not my issue. My issue was the fact that this per-
son was sitting on the couch eating Doritos and chatting with a col-
league, and not behind the circulation desk. They’re both Catholic 
Sisters from the same part of the world and they were just having 
a great conversation. There were a few other people in the library, 
wandering in and out. It dawned on me, watching them sit there 
talking: What is missing not only in terms of voices in the print col-
lection, but missing from the work of the library? What is the rela-
tionship between these two people that is going on here? And why 
does somebody have to sit behind the circulation desk to do good 
circulation and mind the library? After all, every time a new person 
came in, the student worker engaged with them and she made eye 
contact with them. And so, it caused me to check my own expecta-
tions and my own Western ideas that they should be behind the desk. 
And when I was done, and as I was leaving the library, I wished her 
and her friend a good day, and said, just lock up when you leave. 
And she said, yes and I knew that she would do that. It’s those little 
encounters about what’s not only missing from our collections, but 
what’s missing from our experiences, that I think for me at least in-
form the way I think about building my collection. I can’t get rid of 
certain voices in the collection, and I cannot find all the publishers 
I really, really want. So what other ways can I build a collection that 
will work, or allow access to a collection through different eyes? In 
sitting on the couch eating Doritos, the Saturday student worker re-



144  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

minded me that there is more than one way to do the work. I think 
that is important for me at least, it’s always really important to ask 
myself, what am I learning from somebody else? 

Daniel Smith
As I was preparing for this panel, I was reminded of the fact that I 
have found utilizing social media, particularly places like Twitter, 
or hashtags or groups where there are there’s often sharing of re-
sources, very helpful for me. I can think of the ways that I benefit 
from folks who are in critical librarianship and some other things 
like that. So, I encourage us to think about places where those sorts 
of resources exist. 

I also wonder what it would look like to gather together annually 
as theological librarians from across the world. What would it look 
like to partner with librarians who are outside the United States? I 
think that could be a really helpful way of beginning to evaluate our 
collections and to learn what we could or should we be doing. I think 
that would provide a valuable perspective.  While I’m sure some of 
us are doing that kind of thing on an ad hoc basis, in one-on-one con-
versations or in small groups, I wonder what it would look like if we 
were more intentional or what it might look like in a larger context. 

As Kris mentioned, I try to keep abreast of decolonial series as 
more and more publishers like Lanham have series that are dedi-
cated to decolonial work. I find it very helpful to see what’s forthcom-
ing, and who’s publishing in these series and then maybe looking for 
other work that they’ve done as well. 

Finally, I don’t know if it’s the case at your institution, but I find 
that as our international student population continues growing 
working with international students, and intentionally asking them 
for suggestions has been really eye opening for all of us. I have often 
asked them, “What is missing here?” or “What do you wish we had, 
that we don’t have?” Sometimes the students seem surprised to have 
been asked that question, but even if  they don’t necessarily have an 
answer, it has started a conversation, and sometimes students have 
come back to me and said, “You know, you remember that time you 
asked me about like what I wish you had in the library, you know, 
this, this is something that I wish that we had.” So, it opens that sort 
of conversation and helps them see themselves as partners in this 
sort of collection development journey, because I think that that’s 
an essential thing.



PANEL PRESENTATIONS  145

Yesan Selan
Well, at my institution, we especially seek close collaboration with 
the faculty members, since they are the ones who are directly in-
volved in what is happening in their own teams. Understanding the 
developments that are happening while we seek to fulfill the faculty 
members’ needs helps me understand what is missing in my own 
library collection. So, I periodically review my collection and the 
collection development policy and ask, “Does this address the needs 
of our researchers in a specific way?” So, my research scholars also 
help me as they come with their own needs. As my friends and fel-
low panelists rightly mentioned, and they’re the ones who would say, 
what they wish to have in libraries. Sometimes, you know, it may be 
too hard for us to purchase everything, but it is still has been very 
helpful for me. The close connections with these networks probably 
show which organizations produce literature and who is producing 
scholarly works. 

My second tip would be: look at how many publishers of West-
ern publications there are, yet very few publishers would give you 
a place or consider your publications. So many scholarly works 
come from the genius of the majority world, and I would I wish to 
see one day the majority of the publishers offering works by schol-
ars in the majority world. This would require close collaborations 
between majority world institutions and organizations and those in 
the Western world.

How might we better connect the students, faculty, and guest re-
searchers at our libraries with the works of scholars from the ma-
jority world1 and other under-represented groups?

Kris Veldheer
I wish it had been a smaller question. For me, part of it is looking out-
side of religion and theology to other disciplines. For example, I’ve 
added some titles to the collection lately, that have to do with things 
like indigenous research methods, or Aboriginal research methods, 
drawing on the work of the indigenous communities in Canada, and 
some of the communities in Australia and New Zealand, I’m sure 
there are others I have yet to find. There are some African scholars I 
have found, and of course, Latin American, but just how do I choose 
which ones I get? So, I’m trying to represent other voices but those 
are some that I found from other disciplines, and I want them in my 



146  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

collection. I want them because not only do they speak to other ways 
of doing things, they also are underrepresented. I have students, par-
ticularly in our DMin program, from around the world, and because 
it is an online program, or mostly online program, I need to have a 
collection that represents their contexts and I need to connect them 
with those kinds of resources. I also am leaning very much into the 
work of Atla, and how they’ve diversified the database and include 
full-text materials. That has been proven very, very helpful for me, 
allowing me to connect my students from a number of different con-
texts with scholars in other areas.

I don’t necessarily like the word “underrepresented groups,” be-
cause for me, in my colonial context, I have a hard time understand-
ing who is underrepresented because in my mind, everyone is un-
derrepresented. So how do I also pull in all those voices, including 
underrepresented groups in the context of the United States such as 
people of color, but also LGBTQ, into the library’s collection?

Daniel Smith
Oftentimes, when I’m working with a student who schedules a re-
search consultation with me or is asking for research assistance, I 
find that over time, it’s because they’ve exhausted themselves. It’s 
not because they have no idea what to look for, or where to look; a 
lot of times, they’ve done a lot of research already and they’ve al-
ready found some resources. Yet, for some reason, they’re looking 
for more. It could be that they’re looking for more diverse perspec-
tives, or they’re looking just to see if they have found what they need 
to find. So, a lot of times, I’ll ask students when they reach out to me, 
if they’re comfortable, to share what they have found already with 
me because this helps me get a sense of what they’re finding and 
where those gaps might be. I might encourage them to think, as Kris 
was mentioning earlier, What about a more interdisciplinary per-
spective? Or what about this scholar? Have you thought about this?  
Sometimes I find that introducing such questions validates students 
as researchers and encourages them to go just a little bit further.  

As I mentioned earlier, I wonder what social media hashtags 
might exist around decolonial collections and decolonizing librar-
ies. I wonder also what it might look like, for example for those who 
create metadata for the catalog and for those of us who are in public 
services, or access services, or doing some sort of reference and in-
struction work to identify subject headings that are decolonial, or, as 



PANEL PRESENTATIONS  147

Kris says, from the non-majority world.  Are there some shared sub-
ject headings that can be really helpful, that we could utilize more, 
and that we could point students towards? Because sometimes you 
can click on these links and expand your search to see what other 
libraries might have. I wonder if that might be a valid partnership 
and a valid way of enhancing how we expand students’ research and 
make them more aware of what else is out there.

Yesan Selan
Because ours is a relatively small institution, but it is still engaged in 
serving postgraduate and doctoral level research institutions, I en-
joy close connections with faculty, students, and research scholars 
from my own and other institutions, and such close connections help 
me better understand their contexts and their own research needs. 
Regarding subject headings, as my friend rightly said, we do have 
this local classification giving due importance to the grouping of the 
resources, enhancing the visibility of resources that sometimes can 
get lost in the larger collection. So, we do have special arrangements 
for these indigenous voices, and special subject headings, and also 
alerts that I set up with the students and faculty members, to closely 
connect with them. My local library context network has helped me 
understand some of the unique challenges they face, and we try to 
address some of these in our own situations so the solutions that are 
used are made available in other libraries as we try to emulate some 
of the best practices that are used in other libraries.

Question Three: What would you do (in the best of all possible 
worlds)? 
In an ideal theological library/seminary/school or theology, how 
might you imagine a collection and course of study that encourag-
es students to encounter some of these missing voices, while also 
ensuring they develop a familiarity with theologians of tradition-
ally recognized historical significance?

Kris Veldheer
If I ran the zoo, there would be enough money in the budget to be 
able to provide research resources such as Atla databases, to any-
one who wanted them or needed them. I say that because there are 
groups in my school, for example, African cohorts, who can’t get to 
my library website or even Atla’s databases not because they are 



148  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

not available, but because they don’t have the bandwidth. It doesn’t 
work for them, so I end up having to go through all sorts of hoops to 
try and equip them. And so if I ran the zoo, I would figure out ways 
to better equip the students who need the resources and have the 
financial resources to think about whatever it takes to deliver what 
the students need.

Daniel Smith
In an ideal world, if money and time were unlimited, I think that I 
would try to find ways of creating some sort of exchange network. I 
work predominantly in the United Methodist world, where we have 
the International Association of Methodist Schools, Colleges, and Uni-
versities, often called IAMSCU. I would think that something maybe 
exists for a lot of a lot of us. I wonder if there would be a way of inten-
tionally creating some sort of librarian network within that, so that 
we can be more intentional about exchanging resources because as 
Kris has said, it’s so hard to find some of these resources. And I think 
that if we had that more intentional sort of grouping or partnership, 
it might be helpful. One more thing:  I wonder with all of Atla’s OER 
work, if there could be something that we do around that, that would 
supplement this sort of decolonial commitment or intentionally in-
corporate lots of international and diverse perspectives.

Yesan Selan
I wish to see one day when the library catalog is visible, and the in-
digenous voices are visible and accessible, like a digital repository, 
or in portable devices. I want to see books by Asian authors getting 
your attention, or being recognized by publishers in Europe and 
North America who would recognize them and help them get pub-
lished. That would help the indigenous voices of the majority word 
be widely known and vice versa, help the works of Western authors 
be more readily accessible in Asia. We would also try to keep a bal-
ance that would help all the categories of users in the library. 



PANEL PRESENTATIONS  149

ENDNOTES

1  Majority World is an alternative term for Developing World, 
Global South, or Third World. It describes countries in Africa, 
Asia, South and Central America and the Caribbean more 
geographically accurately and less pejoratively than other 
terms. https://toolkit.risc.org.uk/casestudy/majority-world-or-
minority-world-further-education-case-study/

https://toolkit.risc.org.uk/casestudy/majority-world-or-minority-world-further-education-case-study/
https://toolkit.risc.org.uk/casestudy/majority-world-or-minority-world-further-education-case-study/

