Many people think of the Christian Science Reading Room as mainly a quiet place for research and study with a librarian on hand to answer questions. This special meeting explored a very different concept—that of the Reading Room as a lively place of interaction with visitors, a resource center, where the librarian's mission is to lead the visitor actively, prayerfully, to the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy.
The three participants in the panel discussion were Patricia Wilson, librarian of a Reading Room in Chicago; Ballo Bentinck, from Zurich, Switzerland; and Miles Harbur, Chief Operating Officer, Print Publishing, at The Christian Science Publishing Society. All three exuded such a contagious joy and conviction when they talked about the Reading Room's mission. "I'm going home with a whole new sense of my job," said one librarian afterward.
The meeting opened with the reading and discussion of the story of Philip and the Ethiopian from Acts, See Acts 8.26-39. which has some interesting parallels to Reading Room work. In this story, Philip follows God's direction to go help a certain eunuch understand a Bible passage he was reading, and to preach to him about Jesus. The eunuch ended up being baptized by Philip and going "on his way rejoicing."
