After seven years as director of the Graduate Theological Union Library and convener of the Art and Religion doctoral area, Bonnie Hardwick is relocating to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Recently she sat down with Currents to reflect on her tenure here.

What has been your greatest satisfaction as director of the library?
Helping build an excellent library staff. We have some staff members who have been with the library a long time and others who have joined us during my tenure. To a person, they are highly competent, service-oriented, and generous-spirited. It is perhaps the last quality that I treasure the most, for it enables true collegial work relationships.

What has been your greatest challenge?
Without a doubt, the greatest challenge has been space. When I came there was simply no more shelf room for books. On top of that, we needed an electronic teaching lab so that we could incorporate emerging databases and other electronic resources into our instruction program as well as promote the use of instructional technology in the classroom. By putting the current periodicals into translucent plastic boxes on regular shelving, instead of on display-style shelves, we made room for the teaching lab. Compact, moveable shelving on the half of level one that is on bedrock relieved our shelving problem—for a time.

How has the library changed in these seven years?
First of all, I would like to say how it hasn't changed. The Flora Lamson Hewlett Library is still a wondrously beautiful building, where it is a pleasure to come to work every morning. Stephen De Staebler's winged figure continues to soar through the atrium, reminding us of our striving towards wholeness. The art exhibitions help us not only to enlighten the mind but also delight the eye.

How the library has changed is, I hope, evident immediately when a person walks in: the printed books of the reference collection are on the right; the electronic teaching lab is on the left, the information commons between the two. This is where libraries are right now—poised between digital resources and printed materials. We can see the balance beginning to shift, particularly for journals and reference materials, but the book will also be with us for quite some time to come.

My staff would probably also want me to mention that the library has just gone through a winter of incessant rain without any leaks! The rebuilt terraces are not only handsome, particularly with the new plantings, but they are completely waterproof. Our CFO, Steve Argyris, the architects, and the construction crew have worked a miracle!

Where is the library headed at this juncture (and into the future)?
We will grow! A library is a living creature, and we will continue to stretch for space. We are fortunate to have our member school American Baptist Seminary of the West accept 3600 linear feet of older, less used books into their former library stacks. The move buys some time—probably six years at most—to continue to plan for the growth and permanent storage of the collection. Meanwhile we need to keep our eye on the progress of national, and international, digitization projects, as well as encourage the American Theological Library Association to pursue cooperative digitization projects that would directly benefit its member libraries.

With some major projects accomplished, the library now has a moment of respite for the library staff to sit down together for the next stage of strategic planning about priorities, staff resources, and future needs. It is this moment, with this capable and generous staff, that is my gift to my successor as director of the library.

Bonnie Hardwick will be leading the GTU Travel Program's trip to Santa Fe in November 2006