When my friend, a Presbyterian pastor, was dying in the hospital, the last thing on my mind was his professional and personal library. As I grieved his passing, surveying, touching and then passing on his books became a soothing ointment. I learned better than I’d known what a broad range of interests he had and his enormous appetite for learning. I’d long known what a fine teacher he was.
The challenge of stewarding the books’ future excited me! Who would want them? How do we get them in the right hands? The subjects wouldn’t have been of much value to the used bookstores in town and the area’s nonprofit used bookstore didn’t have the capacity for the quantity of faith-based books.
God opened a door, or actually, God wheeled a dolly that rolled our responsibility onto welcoming bookshelves. The current publications were received by Englewood Review of Books in the form of four vans and a pick-up truck full of boxes. When Englewood Review of Books has catalogued the books, their online sale will support the community ministry of the Englewood Christian Church.
“Excellent condition!” exclaimed the librarians at the Indiana State Library and the Indianapolis Marion County Library as they accepted the 50-piece collection of books, periodicals, pictures and curios on Henry Ward Beecher and his family. Having served as a pastor in Indianapolis, Henry Ward Beecher ephemera are of interest to those two libraries. Those included in the Indiana State Library collection will have a name plate honoring the deceased and his name will be noted in the catalog. From those shelves and in the Rare Book Room at the city library, the books will be available throughout the state for any with a library card.
Physically and emotionally, boxing and parting with those books was exhausting…. and joyful! Not at all like the experiences I had in two interim pastor positions disposing of the former pastors’ libraries. Those pastors left their unwanted books boxed and stacked in the church libraries, out of sight, out of mind. They could have been given to the closest seminary or Christian college library, the city library, recycled, sold to the used bookstore or to one of these organizations listed below.
Are you wondering where to donate your books? Here are some independent booksellers that serve the church by providing used Christian books at reasonable used prices:
East /Midwest:
Englewood Review of Books (Indianapolis)
Contact: editor@englewoodreview.org
Plains:
Steel’s Used Christian Books (Kansas City)
Contact: info@steelsbooks.com
Northwest:
Windows Booksellers (Eugene, Oregon)
Contact: katrina@theologybooks.com
California:
Archives Bookshop (Pasadena, California)
Contact: info@archivescalifornia.com
Peggy McDonald is a teaching elder who works with newly ordained pastors.
