To Each Monk His Book: Providing Access Through Collection Organization at Norcia’S New Library

Florida Atlantic University Libraries Library Faculty and Staﬀ Publications Florida Atlantic University Libraries Year To Each Monk his Book: Providing Access through Collection Organization at Norcia’s New Library Ethan J. Allen∗ Marguerite Wolf† ∗Florida Atlantic University, [email protected] † This paper is posted at DigitalCommons@Florida Atlantic University. http://digitalcommons.fau.edu/lib pubs/8 To Each Monk his Book: Providing Access through Collection Organization at Norcia's New Library Ethan Allen Marguerite Wolf In this article, the authors discuss their experience organizing a library for a community of Benedictine monks in central Italy. An initial assessment of the monastery’s resources suggested that both global and immediate access to bibliographic records was feasible and that the librarians could begin cataloging offsite. Decisions about classification schemes and software were made with sensitivity to the international makeup of the community, historical and national library practices, financial limitations, and perceived computer literacy within the community. Unanticipated problems emerged with respect to classification, human resources, time lags and distances, yet overall access to the collection has been enhanced by addressing these problems. Keywords: monastic libraries; classification systems; copy cataloging; automation; Italian libraries; bibliographic control, Monastero di San Benedetto; Benedictines The traditional purpose of a monastic library is to keep a collection of written sources that will serve the formative needs of its community members. At the core of monastic collections are modern editions of ancient works. The Rule of St. Benedict, ca. 530, is the text which governs the common life of monastics, even today. Chapter 48 of this work refers explicitly to hours of each day which are to be spent working, praying, and reading. Beyond required reading, the Rule also prescribes additional reading to deter idleness. In support of the monastery’s living culture, its library must contain material to which the monks will return often throughout their lives: Sacred Scripture, commentaries on Sacred Scripture, writings and commentaries on the Fathers of the Church, monastic Fathers, and of primary importance, liturgical texts for daily liturgy (Neuhofer, 1999). One such monastery made a request of the authors to advise them on how best to organize their collection. This essay is a description of their response and the decisions that were made in terms of client preferences and resources, collection organization, and challenges to access. Monastero di San Benedetto, located in Norcia, Italy, is the new home for a recently formed community of Benedictine monks, the Communità di Maria Sedes Sapientiæ.1 Norcia (Nursia), an ancient, walled city nestled in the Sybilline Mountain range, is recognized as the birthplace of Saints Benedict and Scholastica. Given this historical distinction, its Prior envisions a library which will serve not only the needs of the monks but, in time, a larger community of scholars and visitors, thus becoming a center of monastic research. The monastery complex is situated on the city’s main piazza and includes the historic Basilica of St. Benedict, the cloister and its guesthouse. It was only months prior to the monks’ arrival that both the Basilica and adjoining residential spaces were renovated. It was not known at the time of the renovation who the new occupants would be or that the residential section would serve as a cloister. A room measuring seventy-nine square meters within the cloister serves as its library. By 2003, benefactors provided funding to furnish the library along three walls with custom wooden shelving and cabinetry at an approximate height of two meters, enough to accommodate approximately three to four thousand volumes. Approximately half the funding for the shelving came from public institutions in the region, while the remainder came from private gifts. Initially, the collection consisted of about two thousand volumes scattered throughout various rooms: on tables, in boxes, and on precious little shelf space. A secondary reading room or La Sala di Consultazione is situated within the guesthouse to preserve the seclusion of the cloister. The Sala serves several functions: it is used for meetings of many kinds, guests and scholars may read or study there, and it is presently home to about one thousand uncataloged volumes and the automated catalog. A nearby classroom provides storage for additional volumes awaiting processing. Access Problems at Monastero di San Benedetto The primary goal in organizing this collection was to give the monks straightforward access to their books. The library space unintentionally serves as one of two routes from monastic cells to other parts of the monastery and necessarily sees much daily traffic. Knowing the general location of books on subjects of interest should be a nearly intuitive process and monks walking through the library ought to be able to select books quickly on their way to classes or other functions. Several members of this community hold advanced degrees in theology and therefore have a pre-conceived notion of the organization of religious knowledge. This turned into a minor crisis when the client objected to the location of properly classified books. An equally important long-term vision for the monastery is that its library holdings will distinguish it among the more established local centers of monastic research. While the monks are comfortable using computers for standard applications and email, none have sufficient training or time to maintain web pages, let alone to mount an OPAC. Further, there is currently no formally trained librarian within the community and physical access to books for in-hand descriptive cataloging remains an impediment to timely processing. The authors found themselves in a rather unique situation, challenged by problems of distance, conflicting notions of knowledge organization, and wavering human and financial resources. Potential for Global Access In 2001, a needs assessment was made at the site to determine the monastery’s goals and to propose objectives for the organization of the forthcoming library. Global access to the collection’s holdings was envisioned for the long term. An editorial on international library cooperation by Donald Riggs identified four essential components for libraries hoping to move in the direction of a global virtual library. These elements are: software, hardware, human resources, and data/information (Riggs, 2001). It was conceivable, then, that the collection at Norcia would become a part of such a global network, with its searchable catalog on the internet. At present the collection is adequate for the immediate needs of the monks, while expansion is viewed as both necessary and inevitable. As much as seventy-five percent of the now eight thousand or so monographic holdings are in English, while the remainder are in Latin, Italian, German, French, Spanish, and other European languages. It would be naive to think that the financial resources to establish Monastero di San Benedetto’s place within a global virtual library are immediately at hand, yet the existing infrastructure in Italy and the resolve to succeed are forces already at work to accomplish this. Bibliographic records for holdings in many other Italian libraries already constitute a share in the global virtual library. The Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale (SBN) network is an aggregate of large and small member libraries which contribute records to a common Italian index. The SBN Index is managed by the ICCU (Central Institute for the Union Catalog of Italian Libraries and for Bibliographic Information). Streamlined automation for library records for the whole of Italy remains problematic, however. Agreement on standard procedures, coordination, and lack of a uniform structure for a common database are cited as causes contributing to reluctance to unionize national holdings (Calabresi, 2000). If the monastery held a membership in SBN with its interlibrary loan program, it would have access only to those books belonging to member libraries and vice versa. This arrangement is comparable to those libraries in the United States which enjoy OCLC or consortial memberships. Many academic institutions in Italy, however, put their catalogs online without contributing their records to national or international utilities. Worldwide access to these records goes unhindered, but the scholar must probe individual or consortium catalogs rather than a convenient single national index. At close range, the Benedictine monks at Norcia do not fully possess the same world- class infrastructure components described by Riggs: their manpower is stretched thinly, professional librarians visit from the U.S. for brief periods once or twice a year on a pro bono basis, and financial resources in general and for the library in particular are meager. The monastery’s human resource shortfall, then, poses the greatest threat to widened access. Conversely, the monastery is strong with respect to the other criteria for access. On the initial visit, one of the librarians surveyed the following: number of PCs and software applications, workstation locations, internet connectivity, reliability of electric power and telephone service, and the computer literacy levels among the monks. Each of these indicators suggested that the community would have no difficulty transitioning into an automated library system. A visit

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