Once Upon a Time

Life goes on at the Baptist Seminary in Cochabamba and I continue to provide support as best I can. Classes officially started mid-February so there’s a back-to-school atmosphere. Our little library team is currently focused on providing digital trainings to each of the grade levels to help them familiarize with online research, databases, and our digital catalog.

A new Master of Theological Studies program has been launched for the first time by International Ministries in conjunction with Palmer Seminary based out of the U.S. Bolivian Baptists have long struggled to access graduate level training and this new initiative aims to educate a cohort of eager students, many of whom have years of ministry experience. One of these students is Pastor Febe, who received a scholarship through CBM in partnership with the Baptist Women of Ontario and Quebec.

As part of their orientation, I had the opportunity to join this group for a day to explore how the library can support them over the next two years. It’s amusing to see students process the extent to which things have changed in recent years, and to watch them process how much academic material is now available—for free—thanks to the open access movement. I was also tasked with covering citation purpose and style (which I love) and plagiarism (no one wants this one). 

Beyond the main seminary site there are also four satellite campuses throughout the country. While there are virtually no books at these locations, the school has worked to creatively set up an interlibrary loans system. Students can now search the online catalog, request titles, and have them delivered by bus to their location.

Slowly we’ve seen progress in the quality of education provided to our theologically minded Bolivian friends and it continues to be a pleasure to see the role the library can played in this.