










































Jaroslav Pelikan on Libraries, Librarianship, and Theological Education


228  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

Jaroslav Pelikan on Libraries, 
Librarianship, and Theological 
Education
A Remembrance
Gregory Morrison, Associate Professor of Library Science, Wheaton College 

ABSTRACT A remembrance of historian Jaroslav Pelikan who gave a ple-
nary at Atla’s 2004 Annual conference.

Some of you will remember the great Yale historian, Jaroslav Pelikan, 
at Atla’s 2004 annual conference in Kansas City. In his plenary ad-
dress, he begins by acknowledging his “enormous debt…to the en-
tire library profession.” He goes on by quoting the lyrics from an old 
music hall song, “You made me what I am today: I hope you’re satis-
fied!” (Pelikan 2004, 97)

 Pelikan will be chiefly remembered as one of the twentieth cen-
tury’s greatest church historians. Most of us think first of his work 
on the American edition of Luther’s Works and, of course, his five-
volume series, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Develop-
ment of Doctrine, as evidence of that fact. Historian Mark Noll, who 
interviewed Pelikan in 1990 just after the release of the fifth volume 
of The Christian Tradition, referred to him as “perhaps the foremost 
living student of church history” (Noll 1990, 24) Noll also called The 
Christian Tradition (in an unpublished manuscript) “the twentieth 
century’s greatest work of church history in English” (Mark A. Noll 
Papers).

In the 1980s and 90s this same giant among American intellectuals 
and educators was also advocating for a “new collegiality” between 
“research librarians” and “research scholars,” where the latter view 
the former as genuine peers of equal status and partner more in-
tentionally in the business of teaching undergraduate and graduate 
students. Pelikan believed that this relationship required “serious 
attention,” and that the quality and integrity of teaching, learning, 



LISTEN AND LEARN SESSIONS  229

and scholarship depended on it. He first articulated his vision of “col-
legiality in teaching” at an ARL conference in 1989 (Pelikan 1989) 
and published a version of it soon after as a chapter (11) in his book, 
Idea of a university: a Reexamination (Pelikan 1992), a commentary 
on John Henry Newman’s influential book. (Newman 1996) 

Pelikan’s earnest plea seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Clearly, 
nothing systemic has changed. Pelikan did leave us an example of 
what he envisioned, which takes us back to the 2004 Atla conference, 
where Pelikan was joined in the plenary duties by Valerie Hotchkiss, 
currently the Library Director at Oberlin College, who coauthored 
with him the four-volume Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Chris-
tian Tradition (Hotchkiss and Pelikan 2003).

REFERENCES

Hotchkiss, Valerie R., and Jaroslav Pelikan. 2003. Creeds and 
Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition. New Haven: Yale 
University Press.

Newman, John Henry. 1996. The Idea of a University. New Haven: 
Yale University Press.

Noll, Mark A. 1990. “The Doctrine Doctor.” Christianity Today 34 
(12): 24–26.

——— Mark A. Noll Papers. Archives of Wheaton College.
Pelikan, Jaroslav. 1989. “The Research Librarian and the Research 

Scholar: Toward a New Collegiality.” In Minutes of the One 
Hundred-Twelfth Meeting of the Association of Research 
Libraries, 13–21. Oakland, CA: Association of Research 
Libraries. 

———. 1992. The Idea of the University: A Reexamination. New 
Haven: Yale University Press.

———. 2004. “The Place of Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the 
Theological Library.” American Theological Library Association 
Summary of Proceedings 58: 97–104.

ADDITIONAL WORKS

Additional works by or about Jaroslav Pelikan on the topics of 
libraries, librarianship, or higher education:

Crowley, William Anthony. 1995. “A Draft Research Model of the 
Research University Library Exploring the Scholar-Librarian 
Partnership of Jaroslav Pelikan in ‘The Idea of the University: 
A Reexamination.’” Ph.D., Ohio University. 



230  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

Ingalls, Zoe. 1983. “Yale’s Jaroslav Pelikan. Bilingual Scholar of 
Christian Tradition.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 26, 
(10): 4–5.

Pelikan, Jaroslav. 1961. “A Portrait of the Christian as A Young 
Intellectual.” The Cresset: A Review of Literature, the Arts, and 
Public Affairs 26 (8): 8–10.

———. 1962.“Fathers, Brethren, and Distant Relatives: The Family 
of Theological Discourse.” Concordia Theological Monthly 33, 
no. 12 (December 1962): 710–18.

———. 1962. “Theological Library and the Tradition of Christian 
Humanism.” Concordia Theological Monthly 33, no. 12 
(December): 719–23.

———. 1963. “History of Christian Thought Bookshelf.” The 
Christian Century 80, no. 22 (May 29): 711–12.

———. 1965. The Christian Intellectual. [1st ed.]. New York: Harper 
& Row.

———. 1972. “Dukedom Large Enough: Reflections on Academic 
Administration.” Concordia Theological Monthly 43, no. 5 
(May): 297–302.

———. 1979. “Wisdom of Prospero.” In Minutes of the Ninety-
Fourth Meeting of the Association of Research Libraries, 67–72. 
Cambridge, MA: Association of Research Libraries.

———. 1980. “The Research Library, an Outpost of Cultural 
Continuity.” Imprint of the Stanford Library Associates.

———. 1983. Scholarship and Its Survival: Questions on the Idea of 
Graduate Education. Princeton: Carnegie Foundation for the 
Advancement of Teaching.

———. 1984. The Aesthetics of Scholarly Research: An Address 
for the Sesquicentennial of Tulane University, Delivered at a 
University Convocation on Friday, September 21, 1984. New 
Orleans: Tulane University.

———. 1984. The Vindication of Tradition. New Haven: Yale Univ 
Press.

Vázquez, Esteban. 2017. “Of Pelikan, Pelicans, and the Love of 
Books.” Bouncing into Graceland (blog), September 25. https://
voxstefani.wordpress.com/2017/09/24/of-pelikan-pelicans-and-
the-love-of-books/.

https://voxstefani.wordpress.com/2017/09/24/of-pelikan-pelicans-and-the-love-of-books/
https://voxstefani.wordpress.com/2017/09/24/of-pelikan-pelicans-and-the-love-of-books/
https://voxstefani.wordpress.com/2017/09/24/of-pelikan-pelicans-and-the-love-of-books/

