Library Volunteer Training Session Scheduled

There will be a general training session for library volunteers, and anyone interested in volunteering, on Monday, Feb. 4, 6:00-8:00 pm. We will begin with more general tasks, so those volunteers only interested in basics like shelving and processing may be able to leave earlier. Anyone is welcome to attend.

Book Marks - February 2008

Throughout the month of February we will be sponsoring a Give One, Get One Bible Drive. Please bring your old, gently used bibles to church on any Sunday in February. If you do not have a bible and need one, you are welcome to pick from those donated. At the end of the month, all the bibles left will be sent to Metro State Women’s Prison here in Atlanta. Thirty to sixty women arrive at Metro State each week, many of whom have lost their bibles during their incarceration. Our bible donations will be a true gift to them, so plan to bring your extra bibles! We will collect them in the church library prior to worship and in the narthex after worship for every Sunday in February. Donations may also be left in the library during the week or deposited in our book drop.

This month’s bible drive is just the beginning of our activities for the year. For those thinking ahead to the spring, we will be holding a Children & Youth Book Fair on April 27th to grow our collections for those ages. We are interested in your suggestions for books to add to the children and youth collections, so please share your thoughts with us. If you are interested in volunteering with our library ministry, please contact Myka Kennedy Stephens (library@druidhillsumc.org). We will be holding a brief general training session for all volunteers in February, so be sure to let Myka know if you are interested in attending.

Book Marks - January 2008

Happy New Year from your church library! We accomplished a lot of things in the last year. Here are just a few noteworthy items:
* We installed a book return slot in the door, so materials can be returned at any time – even when the library is closed!
* We have several resources now available for the UMW reading program, including Response magazine and New World Outlook.
* Our library catalog is now available online and continues to grow as we catalog more and more books in our collection. The link can be found through the new library page on the church’s website.

Looking forward to 2008, we hope to finish our library handbook, continue cataloging the collection, and offering new resources to meet your needs. If you have any research interests or questions, please feel free to ask Myka Kennedy Stephens. Your church librarian can usually be found in the library on Sunday mornings from 9:45-11:00, and always available via e-mail: library@druidhillsumc.org.

We always welcome suggestions and comments about how we can improve the collection and our library ministry. Hope to be seeing you in the new year!

New Resource Guide Available for UMW Reading Program

A new resource guide is now available on our Wiki: UMW Reading Program. Although UMW maintains its own collection of reading program books, several of these titles can also be found in the church library's collection. This guide provides basic information about the reading program as well as a list of reading program books currently available in the church library. Access it at the following address:
http://dhumclibrary.pbwiki.com/UMWReadingProgram

Library to be open this Wednesday 10/24

The Library will be opening around 6:15 this Wednesday, 10/24. It will remain open during the administrative council meeting and for approximately 10 minutes after. Hope you can drop by!

Watch our cataloging progress!

The bulletin board outside the library has been updated (finally!) for the first time in about a year. The most exciting new addition is a notice about our online card catalog. It features the number of titles currently in the catalog, a number which will be updated periodically so you can watch our progress. The current number is 288... watch it grow!

Coming soon: The Good Heart by H.H. The Dalai Lama

Discovery Class will be studying this book, and Dan Browning has been kind enough to provide the library with both a copy and synopsis of it.

The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus.

This book is a collection of lectures given by the Dalai Lama on various familiar Gospel passages. Noted author and scholar of world religions Huston Smith described this as "arguably the best book on interreligious dialogue published to date". According to the Publishers Weekly review:

It is refreshing to read the Dalai Lama's meditations on the New Testament selections, many of which he had never read before this seminar but which are among the most familiar for Christians. As His Holiness thinks about famous passages like the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1-10) and Jesus' resurrection appearance to Mary (John 20:10-18), we see them from the entirely new perspective of Tibetan Buddhist spiritual knowledge and understanding. Consequently, familiar passages are renewed and opened to unexpected insights.