Carrie Beth is the Library Director at Johnson University (FTE: 1160) in Knoxville, TN. She been a member of ACL for 25 years.
Describe yourself using a book title: People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
What’s the best thing about being a librarian? The opportunity to learn something new every day.
What are you currently reading? I’m currently juggling several books – an ARC of Voices from the Second World War: Voices from the Second World War: Stories of War as Told to Children of Today (oral history of WWII, mostly from a British perspective), Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, and the audio version of Stacy Schiff’s The Witches: Salem, 1692 (a history of the Salem witch trials)
Describe ACL in three words: Christian / Librarian / Community
How have you, as an academic librarian, contributed to your campus? I support student learning, research, and teaching. I also mentor student workers. For some of them, library work study is their first job.
I began my career as a librarian. . . after four years of evangelistic and new church planting work near London, England. I left the mission field to attend graduate school to pursue the career in libraries that I had dreamed of since middle school. I spent my first year of library school as a graduate assistant for one of my professors, and then I worked as a library assistant at Johnson while I completed my degree. I was a library school student when I attended my first ACL conference in 1992. Nancy Olson was the president of ACL that year, and she hosted a breakfast for first-time attendees during the conference. However, that wasn’t the first time we met! One summer a few years earlier, Nancy and Helen Lemmon (my predecessor at Johnson) spent a couple of weeks in England teaching in our vacation Bible school and assisting with our family camp. I still remember the surprise on Nancy’s face when I showed up at an ACL conference!
What do you value about ACL? The generosity of Christian librarians reflected in discussion list conversations, the many hundreds of hours of volunteer service given to ACL every year, and the fellowship experienced at annual conferences.
How were you introduced to ACL? My predecessor at Johnson invited me to my first ACL conference in 1992.
How are you or have you been involved in ACL? Presently I am the team coordinator of the Christian Periodical Index team, and I also index several titles for CPI. Past service includes presenting at conferences, contributing reviews to The Christian Librarian, service on the Bible College section team, serving on the board of directors (director at large, vice president, and secretary), participating on the conference planning team for the 2015 conference, and serving on task forces for marketing and strategic planning.
Do you have any specific interests in the library world? Genealogy & archives