Each October Theological Libraries Month is celebrated with a contest that invites students, faculty, and staff to answer one question: “What’s your favorite reason to visit the Divinity School Library?”

The annual competition is especially fierce among new students, who are introduced to the Top 10 at orientation in August and challenged to begin crafting a winning entry for the coveted Reason No. 4. (As it turns out, the library staff came up with the other nine. Only No. 4 changes, providing the winning entrant a fleeting year of fame.)

The 2009 winner, whose entry will be read to incoming students at orientation 2010, was Maria Doerfler, a Ph.D. candidate in religion. Doerfler’s reason— “By year three of your Duke career, you might actually be able to find your way from folios to front desk without a trail of breadcrumbs”—will replace Ismael Ruiz- Millan’s Reason No. 4.

Doerfler’s win was announced at a luncheon in the York Room following a talk by professor emeritus D. Moody Smith D’57, a member of the “Student Library Workers Hall of Fame.”

Smith called his part-time library job “one of the high points of my theological career. [Librarian] Donn Michael Farris was the first person to hire me, and there was no negotiation over pay. I started at the bottom.”

This honor, said Smith, should be added to his resume. “Seriously, you couldn’t be in a better Hall of Fame.”

10 The stellar collection: 380,000 books, 700 periodicals, 100 electronic databases—and still growing!!

9 Excellent reference service is available in person, by phone, by e-mail, or by instant message.

8 Printing from our computers is not 10 cents a page, not 5 cents a page, but free for your first 3,600 copies.

7 It’s the greatest place on campus to work—Ask for an application form at the Circulation Desk.

6 We’re open for the best 85 hours a week. See the website for our hours.

5 We have 12 public computers with access to the library catalog, databases, and the network. If you bring your own laptop, we have wireless available throughout the library and in the Duke Gardens.

4 As Top Ten contest-winner from last year Ismael Ruiz-Millan said, “In addition to Goodson Chapel, it is the place where I can be in one spirit with my other fellow students—in the first, in the spirit of worship, and in the second, in the spirit of learning.”

3 You get to see the world while studying the Book of Discipline—check out the view from the Baker Methodist Research Center!

2 We’re better than Google—we’re warmblooded! Theological research done using the internet alone is really dumb. Remember: If it’s not there, you can’t find it!

1 THE STAFF!

For more information go to library.duke.edu/divinity