The Librarian as an Image of Pastoral Care

Drawing upon Anton Boisen's image of the living human document and Bonnie Miller-McLemore's idea of the living human web, this paper explores the librarian as an image of pastoral care. By paying attention to the testimonies of a number of librarians and to my own experience as a pastoral theologian and a library worker, I suggest three areas of intersection between pastoral theology and librarianship: attention to individuality, a sense of impartiality, and kindness. The paper concludes by pointing out that the librarian and the pastoral theologian share the task of defending the uniqueness of individual experience in a culture that tends toward conformism.