2017 American Theological Library Association Annual Conference

This session will explore some of the emerging trends in graduate theological education as observed by the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada, with specific attention to ATS data resources and recent patterns in accrediting actions as well as the speaker’s own experience working with member schools. The session will also describe the ATS Educational Models and Practices study and will share some of the initial discoveries from this major research initiative. Participants will be invited to reflect on these trends in light of their own institutional contexts, with particular emphasis on the ways in which these affect the current and future work of theological libraries and librarians. The session will also include time for discussion of the current adequacy and possible future directions for the ATS Commission on Accrediting’s Standards of Accreditation and well as its data collection services, and will also explore how these same issues might relate to other accrediting and institutional contexts.

A category of information users that interests me in particular is that of Seminary students. There are several studies exploring the information needs and information-seeking behavior of college students including Religion majors, but not much work at the Seminary level. For instance, one such study is Lipton and Nyrose’s article entitled “Study of the Information Seeking Behavior of Theology and Religious Studies Students,” published in the American Theological Library Association Summary of Proceedings 65: 288–306. More work needs to be done at the graduate level to explore the patterns of behavior of advanced degree students.

This study will explore the findings of a particular graduate student population, the Seminary students from the University of the South. The data covers the cycle of the entire academic year 2016-17 by recording all reference and research transactions organized in quantitative and qualitative categories from patron type to the type of question(s) being raised, the date, time and duration of the transaction etc. I will be focusing in particular on three questions: (1) How course assignments create information needs and set behavior expectations? (2) How available library instruction influences student behavior? (3) How age influences the use of research tools? The emerging patterns will be analyzed and reported as findings at the end of the study.