The Father Georges Florovsky Library at Saint Vladimir’s Seminary has a new dedicated web site—library.svots.edu—thanks to the efforts of Librarian/Archivist Matthew Garklavs.
“A dedicated library web site has been on our ‘wish list’ for many years now, but we never had the available time and talent to accomplish the task. The Seminary is very grateful to Matthew for all his efforts in developing the site,” notes longtime Librarian Eleana Silk.
While serving the needs of the students and faculty of the Seminary, the web site will also act as a gateway for the academic community at large. Scholars from around the world have come to use the Library here, because they can find materials not available anywhere else. The new web site affords them more access to these resources and makes it easier to utilize the collection.
One feature Matthew highlights is the student theses page. The Library possesses over 860 student theses on a wide range of theological topics, and it is a fascinating exercise to read through the list to discover the topics which notable bishops and clergy have studied during their years at Saint Vladimir’s. Three significant archival collections are also newly available: The Father Alexander Schmemann Papers, The Father Georges Florovsky Papers, and the Skvir-Buketoff Music Collection. Other features include:
- A synopsis of the Library’s history.
- More information about acquisitions from former faculty, alumni, clergy, and laypeople. “The current collection development plan is to accept any donated texts within the scope of our collection. Then what we already possess and don’t need, we pass on to other Orthodox institutions,” explains Matthew Garklavs.
- An Interlibrary Loan Form for submitting loan or copy requests—available for current patrons.
- A digital archive of academic resources and links to other Orthodox web sites.
- A guide to using the ATLA Religion Database and an inventory of journals from our collection that are available in digital format.
- Finding aids for the first three archival collections.
Matthew emphasizes that the web site is still evolving, and he encourages patrons to offer input and suggest academic resources for the digital archive. “Going forward there will be even more to develop,” he explains, “such as weekly blog posts about rare books, activities taking place in the library, and announcements of new collections as we bring them online.
“Creating the library web site has been one of the most challenging projects I have undertaken at Saint Vladimir’s, but making it fully realized has been very rewarding,” he adds.
