BETH 2022

Picking up on this year’s conference theme, we would like to present our visions and thoughts for a small theological university library ten years from now. We will discuss challenges (possibilities and threats) in a rapidly developing sector where the only thing we really can tell about the future is that it will certainly be radically different from our work as we know it.
First, we will discuss the library’s twofold aim (in reality manifold): Providing high-quality services to students and to faculty also in the future. As early as 1930 José Ortega y Gasset in his book The Mission of the University outlined its primary missions: “the teaching of the learned professions, the fostering of scientific research … and finally the creation of cultured persons with the ability to make intellectual interpretations of the world”.(*) Then we will present today’s situation where we are still in an early phase of digitization and implementing the demands that Plan S has put on the sector.
Based on national white papers and policies, as well as our institution’s strategic plans and trends in the higher education library sector, we will try to identify and point out some areas of importance to the MF Norwegian School of Theology’s library in 2032, when it comes to services to the students, to the MF faculty, and to a broader audience. We will also try to pinpoint some areas where we can benefit from cooperation between theological libraries, in Norway, the Nordic countries, as well as with BETH.
As part of the national infrastructure of higher education and research, with MF being the largest provider of theological education and research in Norway – and with the Norwegian strategy for lifelong learning – we will also look into the question of how to provide high-quality library services to external user groups: members of the ecclesiastical professions, teachers in the Norwegian public schools, as well as citizens with an interest in the theological subjects.
The future is bright – and it is work intensive!
(*) https://www.routledge.com/Mission-of-the-University/Gasset/p/book/9781560005605