Classification in Theological Libraries Today: Ethics and Practice, Local and Global

This chapter explores practical and ethical challenges of classification in theological libraries whose holdings and classification practices have historically focused on Christianity. It considers how theological libraries balance responsibilities to existing collections and sensitive treatment of religions or denominations outside their traditional focus. Discussion is set against a backdrop of increasing scrutiny and reform of universal classification schemes’ (e.g. LCC and DCC) historical iniquities, with particular focus on critiques of Christian-centric biases. At a time when many theological libraries are working to decolonise collections, fostering cultural, linguistic, and religious diversity through collection development, this chapter examines how we responsibly organise, represent, and provide access to these increasingly diverse collections. Drawing from the classification practices at work in ABTAPL member libraries, this chapter explores how local adaptions can, by their nature as small-scale and customised, provide helpful if imperfect solutions to the biases and insufficiencies of global, general schemes. It argues that (Christian) theological libraries have particular obligations to engage in these debates, not only as spaces serving both academic and faith communities, but as beneficiaries of historically-biased classification practices now grappling with adapting to readers’ and holdings’ changing needs.