Digital Faith: Law, Ethics, and Theology for the Online-Engaged Church

Keynote Address at the 2015 CSIR ConferenceAfzal (2012) defines “information organizations” as “organizations that engage in all or one of the activities involving acquisition, organization, preservation, processing, recording, creation, assimilation, packaging, repackaging, presentation, dissemination, transfer, and access of information” (p. 102-103). Libraries, museums, publishers, music companies, and news channels are all examples of information organizations. I propose that North American Christian churches are information organizations. Weekly they create and present information in the forms of sermons, classes, bible studies, and music through organized events and activities. To support these activities they produce documents like newsletters, bulletins, and reports in print and increasingly digital formats. Churches are preservers of social and cultural data such as births, deaths, marriages, baptisms, and community events. Churches are voracious consumers and disseminators of educational, evangelistic, and worship materials that support a thriving publishing industry. Churches want to reach out to their wider communities, historically adopting new communication technologies like television and radio, and now using the power of the Internet and social media. Hutchings (2015) offers a contemporary overview of the many ways that Christian churches are engaging with technology to mediate faith and to evangelize their communities

The Use of People as Information Sources in Biblical Studies Research

In this exploratory study, I examined the role that people play as informal information sources in biblical studies research. Using semi-structured interviews, I asked a group of seven biblical studies researchers specific questions about their information-seeking behaviour. The study demonstrated that the majority of the researchers regularly used people as information sources in their research. Sometimes they sought factual information from these sources but most frequently they sought affective information; they sought evaluation and affirmation from their colleagues regarding the direction of their research

SAILing through Law School: Assessing Legal Research Skills within the Information Literacy Framework

In this study I ask the question: Can standardized information literacy tests help assess and benchmark the learning of information skills by Canadian law students? This study replicates an earlier study that found that a standardized test of information literacy competencies, SAILS, was not an effective measure of law student information literacy levels. By applying the same test under similar conditions to another group of law students, I found that while the test did not measure legal research competencies, it was effective in measuring basic information literacy skills in law students with often surprising results. I argue that legal research training programs cannot assume students have achieved competency in information literacy skills

Away From the Library

I use Google for my research, I don\u27t use the library. Can you teach my students to do legal research only with tools they can access after they leave University? This paper is about me, the librarian, irritated by the assertion and puzzled by the request. It captures just two of many events on a long and incomplete journey of reimagining librarianship and my changing role as librarian. I would test the assertion, plan the classes, and share those experiences. However, I would be dishonest if I did not also share that I am apprehensive about the results of my tests. What might it mean for me if my clients could be just fine without the library

Seeking the Will of God: The Information Seeking Experiences of the Leaders of Nova Scotia Churches in Transition

Christian Churches in Nova Scotia are facing economic, social, and theological stresses. In response many are engaged in processes of restructuring and renewal. Leaders are initiating and managing these change processes, and they are seeking information to make their decisions, and “God’s will for their churches.” Very little is known about how church leaders seek, gather, evaluate, and use information in their decision-making. In this study I asked the question: “Of the Nova Scotia churches in transition, what are the information seeking experiences of their leaders?” Using ethnographic methods at three church sites, I explored this particular context. I gathered data on church information sources and leaders’ source selections, identifying critical themes such as the impact of new technologies, prayer as a source of information, and the theology of information seeking. I developed a model of church information seeking that can be used as a foundation for further research on information seeking

Matters of Faith and Conscience: A Turning Point in the Taking of Oaths in Canada

The global expansion of the British Empire brought to its colonies British legal traditions. Non-British peoples and cultures had to adapt to these imposed legal traditions, but also left their own indelible marks of change. Following years of immigration in Canada, change was necessitated across the social order to accommodate new faiths and cultural practices of non-British origin. One example involved the taking of court oaths, a practice that in the British legal tradition traces its roots to the Protestant Christian faith. Focusing on the example of court oaths, we argue that as immigration surged at the turn of the 20th century, and Canadian society increasingly became religiously diverse, Canadian courts responded to this diversity when shaping the law of oaths. In 1913 a Nova Scotia case, Curry v. The King, was argued before divided courts up to the Supreme Court of Canada on the question of what binds a sworn oath: the religious forms of oath taken or the conscience of the oath taker regardless of their faith. The precedent established remains good law today and is one illustration of how courts successfully wrestled with issues of religious diversity and accommodation in the emerging multi-cultural society of early 20th century Canada

Seeking God’s Will: The Experience of Information Seeking by Leaders of a Church in Transition

What is the experience of information seeking (IS) by leaders of a church in transition, as they seek the will of God for their church? In this ethnographic pilot study, I begin to create a picture of leaders’ information seeking, first for personal faith building and then for corporate decision making, and I consider the impact of new technologies on these processes. Religious IS did not differ significantly from other everyday-life information seeking (ELIS) experiences, except when subjects were acting in leadership roles. Prominent themes were theological diversity and prayer

Dipping Into a Shallow Pool or Beginning a Deeper Conversation: A Case Study of a Minister\u27s Engagement With the Internet for Preaching

The study considers the question “What is the pastor’s experience of engagement with the Internet for preaching?” The study responds to van der Laan’s work on the potential negative impact of Internet use by Protestant Christian ministers for sermon preparation. My case study ethnographically explores one minister’s experience of Internet seeking (IS) for sermon preparation alongside earlier research on clergy information behavior. The respondent recounted being actively engaged with the Internet in the course of his devotional and intentional IS. He appeared to use online sources critically, and his formal IS activities for sermon preparation were comparable to earlier descriptions of clergy IS. The negative impact of the Internet, feared by van der Laan, was not apparent in this study. I found that Internet use did offer interesting possibilities for feedback and engagement during the sermon-construction process