Librarians from Church of Christ affiliated colleges and universities will gather at Abilene Christian University next week for the Christian College Library Conference May 24-27.

The event is intended to engage the Churches of Christ in cooperative projects that enhance the services offered by Christian college libraries and to facilitate communication and resource sharing among  libraries – for charitable, educational and religious purposes.

This year’s conference theme is “Deep in the Heart of Texas.” James Wiser, dean of library services and educational technology, is in his third year at ACU and coordinating the academic event.

“The individuals who come to this conference represent diversity,” Wiser said. “In our conference, we all get along, we all worship together, and we all are very unified, and I think that’s actually really interesting.”

At the CCLC, library staff gather to discuss topics such as endowments to support graduate studies, what books to remove from their libraries and which ones to keep, and how to deal with congregational archives to better preserve history.

“We need to make sure churches that are closing their archives do not lose their history,” Wiser said. “We’re going to have a meeting about book banning in the Christian universities, because most of us are getting a high number of challenges to books in our collection, and we’re willing to talk collectively about that.”

The conference also provides unique networking opportunities for faculty to know who’s hiring and see what their options are for the future. Wiser first visited ACU in 2007 for the CCLC when he was working as a librarian at Pepperdine University.

“I remember being so impressed with the library here and thinking, this is a place I think I’d want to work one day,” Wiser said. “It took me 13 years to get here, but here I am.”

Learn more about the Christian College Library Conference.

— Connor Mullins

May 18, 2023