Ed Hughes, the librarian at Memphis Theological Seminary (MTS), has spent the past few weeks trying to solve a big problem. Call it a paper jam.
MTS’s cozy, four-story library contains more than 80,000 bound volumes collected over the course of decades of theological education.
The books, one dating back to the 1600s, can’t easily or quickly be sold, given away, or even moved, and the seminary is closing July 31st.
“There is no easy solution,” says Hughes, the library’s bow-tied, bespectacled director since 2019. “I would hate to see them all go to the dumpster.”
Ed Hughes, director of library services for Memphis Theological Seminary (Photo: Courtesy MTS)
The Cumberland Presbyterian Church’s General Assembly voted in late January to close the ecumenical seminary after years of declining enrollment.
Thirty-six members of MTS’s 62nd and final graduating class received their master’s or doctoral degrees last Sunday at First Baptist Church Broad.
Founders Hall, a 114-year-old neo-Gothic mansion that was converted into the seminary’s main building in 1964, is already on the market.
Hughes has spent the past three months helping faculty and students prepare for the final semester while preparing to close the library.
In addition to all the books, the library has collected thousands of photographs, audio and video recordings, newspapers and magazines, and historical records.
Hughes says the Cumberland Presbyterian Church’s historical foundation will take many of the photos, videos, and historical records, along with hundreds of theses and dissertations. The foundation will collect all denomination-related material.
He’s not sure what to do with all the books. When he reached out to used book vendors, they wanted to know the condition of each book and its 13-digit ISBN (International Standard Book Number). There are 80,000 books and only one Ed.
Hughes would love to give the books to another seminary or library or school. But more libraries (and seminaries) are closing than opening. There’s a glut of used books, and digital copies of many are readily available online.
Even if Hughes could sell or donate the books, removing, packing, and shipping them would be a monumental task and expense. The books are held on floor-to-ceiling shelves in narrow rows that provide barely enough room for a single human browser.
There’s no room for a forklift in the stacks, which doesn’t matter because there’s no elevator. He could pile books on a dolly but he’d have to bring each load down very narrow staircases.
Hughes estimates that moving the books out of the library, if only to dump them, could cost more than $20,000 and take weeks, if not months. “Those are just my estimates,” Hughes says. “I’ve never closed a library before.”
Neither has Dr. Jody Hill, MTS president since 2020. “We’ve tried to interest other seminaries in some of these books, but no one is adding print volumes to their libraries,” Hill says. “It’s a shame. There are some gems in here.”
The gems include a rare copy of the Geneva Bible, a 1560 English Protestant translation. It’s the version the Puritans brought with them to America. It’s also known as the “Breeches Bible” because its translation of Genesis 3:7 said Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together to make “breeches.”
The shelves also hold dozens of volumes from the Loeb Classical Library, printed in 1912 with Greek or Latin on one side of the page and the English translation on the other. The series includes works by Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristotle, Virgil, Ovid, Caesar, Seneca, Josephus, and Augustine.
“They’re wonderful but digital versions of all of them are available,” Hughes says. “In the greater Memphis metropolitan area, I think my wife is the only one worried about their future.”
Scores of books are filled with marginalia — handwritten comments and responses from students across generations of ecumenical education.
On a page in one book, the word “Exactly” written in pencil is followed by the word “False” in ballpoint. In another book, “This is heresy” is followed by “No, this is doctrine.”
“Writing things in the margins is a tradition that goes way back, beginning, I believe, with the invention of papyrus,” says Hughes. “For instance, there are theories that marginalia became part of the text in one or more of Paul’s letters.”
The library opened with about 3,600 volumes in 1964, the year the seminary moved from McKenzie, Tennessee, to Memphis. A decade later, it reached its capacity of 44,000 books.
The seminary expanded the library in 1982, doubling the stack space and adding a classroom, a new reading room and a few offices. By 2000, the library held 80,000 bound volumes. Circulation among faculty and students was about 12,000 a year.
“Now, circulation is a handful,” says Hughes. “Every now and then a faculty member will check out a book. Students never do. I haven’t bought a book for the library since 2022.”
The library’s holdings include the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. collection, hundreds of documents — most of them photocopied at the King Center in Atlanta — about King’s life, theology, ministry, and death. It is being donated to the seminary’s House of Black Church Studies, which will become a local nonprofit organization.
The C.S. Lewis Collection holds about 50 books written by or about the late author, scholar, and Anglican theologian. “It’s a nice collection, but his books are readily available,” Hughes says.
Hughes is hoping to find a home for dozens of shelves made by
Rev. Richard Magrill, a cabinet maker and the library’s second
full-time director. (Photo: David Waters)
Books aren’t the only special collections in the library. In the 1970s, Rev. Richard Magrill, a cabinet maker and the library’s second full-time director, built dozens of finished cedar shelves to make room for more books.
The shelves remain. “I don’t know what is going to happen to these shelves,” Hughes says. “They need a new home. They’re beautiful.”
As the library approaches its past due date, Hughes is scouring those and other shelves. He wants to make sure he doesn’t leave behind something important, invaluable or irreplaceable.
“I’m really afraid I’m going to miss something,” he says. “Before it all disappears.”
David Waters is Distinguished Journalist in Residence and assistant director of the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis.