Theology, Religion, and Philosophy Librarian position at Baylor University

There is an opening as the Theology, Religion, and Philosophy Librarian at Baylor University. Here is the ALA and Baylor links:

http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?scr=jobdetail&jobid=12740
http://www.baylor.edu/hr_services/index.php?id=22640

Such a rare event to see all three disciplines in one heading!

2009 Midwinter Agenda

Preliminary Agenda for ALA Midwinter Session of the ACRL Philosophy and Religious Studies Discussion Group

1/25/2009 Sunday 04:00 pm - 05:30 pm RITZ Cameron

(1) Vendor Presentation of Brill's Online Resources for Islamic Studies cf. http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=220

(2) Faculty outreach. What are some ways we've successfully (and unsuccessfully) reached out to faculty? Let's post some of the more promising strategies on the PRT blog. http://prtdiscussiongroup.blogspot.com/

(3) Bibliographic instruction in philosophy. Philosophy doesn't seem to be an area that lends itself readily to library instruction. Lower-level courses usually don't involve much independent research, while faculty often are reluctant to sacrifice class time in higher-level courses. Has anyone had any success in providing bibliographic instruction for such classes? What works? What doesn't?

(4) Collections Budget. Meeting faculty needs with reduced budgets.

(5) Ideas for Annual

(6) Open Discussion

Hope to see you there!

World religions resources

I know a number of people in this group are always in the market for good lists of materials in world religions. The American Theological Library Association's World Religions Interest Group has made available a couple of bibliographies, based on the work of scholars in Islam and--coming soon!--Hinduism. I hope you'll find them useful.

-Miranda

Minutes from 2008 Annual

Philosophy, Religion and Theological Studies Discussion Group

June 29, 2008

Anaheim, CA

Ted prepared an agenda which we followed (kind of!)

1. selected note taker

2. everyone introduced themselves

3. Products, Databases, Resources

LibGuides: Several members are currently constructing guides. Since there is a ‘community’ link available to authors, it facilitates sharing of information and sources.

Poeisis: Database that offers smaller press and society journals online, but the library must have a subscription to the journal in print.

Philosopher’s Index: Database is not comprehensive but offers select literature as building blocks for new thought.

Oxford Biblical Studies: similar in format to Oxford Islamic Studies. Oxford Classical Studies is forthcoming.

Ebsco/American Antiquarian Project: Project availability in 2009. They will be offering historic American periodicals (1693-1876) that include sermons and church notes. These will be sold as collections with a one time cost.

Reference Universe: mentioned as a way to promote print collections.

Guide to Reference: ALA electronic source that will be updated annually.

4. Collection Analysis Tools: OCLC and Resources for College Libraries

Member discussed varied experiences with each and compared costs. RCL doesn’t pick up superseded editions.

5. Collection Development

Gifts: Large collections are costly to process, house, and manage. OCLC provides processing services. Discards can go to Better World Books or booksontherun. Some member libraries are able to sell used books or unwanted gift books as fund raisers. Ebay is a way to sell rare books to raise money for the library (or to locate rare titles to buy).

Move to electronic rather than print: partly to address space issues, partly driven by faculty preferences. There was a discussion of the stability of electronic sources and the group expressed trust in JStor and Project Muse but not other aggregators. Many libraries have stored JStor –held print off site or relied on agreements to make certain one copy exists for a consortium. Other options include not binding JStor titles pending discard once they are included in the database.

Faculty Relations: be vocal, know the chair of the department, be open to suggestions. An issue for some libraries: faculty have figured out that requesting a book for reserve that the library doesn’t own will mean it gets ordered from another part of the budget. They are working the system

Media Requests: Most have noticed a decline in requests.

6. Instruction

Graduate Students: renewed focus on guiding to the sources they learned as undergrads in a new system. For older returning graduate students instruction introduces them to sources that are new to them.

Workshops for Faculty: Names such as “Resource Update” work better than “Faculty Workshop”

7. Blog Value?

Ted will check on the upcoming ALA Connect that may offer blog space to groups.

8. Colin agreed to co-chair with Ted. Group discussed inviting vendors or speakers to meetings such as ATLA when we meet in Chicago.

Respectfully submitted,

Debbie Gaspar

Church, Insurance and Risk Management

Greetings,

As a new member of this blog and an interest in this ACRL group I thought would make a brief post. I am the Digital Services Librarian at St. John's University - Manhattan Campus. The library I work in is primarily focused on insurance and risk management. I recently received an MA in theology from SJU and have been working on building up our collection in the general subject areas of Churches - Insurance; Clergy - Insurance, Professional Liability; and Religion and insurance. The link to our Website is www.stjohns.edu/davislibrary and our catalog link is InsureCat. You're welcome to see what we already have. I'm interested if anyone in this group has a specific resources in these subject areas that you think would be helpful addition. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

Ricky