Responding to Multicultural Challenges: Camden Theological Library

T he Uniting Church in Australia has had a strong multicultural awareness from its beginnings. The Basis of Union states that the Uniting Church “believes that Christians in Australia are called to bear witness to a unity of faith and life in Christ which transcends cultural and economic, national and racial boundaries ...”1 The church has many culturally diverse congregations with worship regularly conducted in 40 different languages and diverse cultural styles.2 Worship services conducted at the chapel at the Centre for Ministry, where the library is located often include readings/songs/prayers in other languages. The new Moderator-elect of the NSW/ACT Synod is a Korean woman, Rev. Myung Hwa Park. The library currently has around 450 members from a diverse range of backgrounds. Through an online survey conducted last year among students of the United Theological College (UTC) who are library members it was identified that almost 50% of our users come from backgrounds other than Australia with the most significant numbers coming from Korea and various Pacific Islands. Other backgrounds include Lebanon, China, Africa, Indonesia and the USA. These varying backgrounds can lead to challenges for the library staff and users. UTC, together with Charles Sturt University (CSU), provide subjects for Hannam University theology degrees however the majority of Korean students are studying through UTC in English. The library has a significant number of books in Korean (currently 2,200 individual titles) and a small collection of books in Indonesian. The Korean collection is funded by CSU while the Indonesian collection was based on donations from an Australian/Indonesian congregation. While the library is interested in adding other language collections there is