Meet the library team
Whether you’re visiting for the first time, a regular visitor, or returning as a long-time member, staff at Dalton McCaughey Library are keen to help you feel welcome, prepared, and supported for research and learning.
We love working with the wide range of people who come through our doors: students, clergy, academics, independent researchers, and lifelong learners alike. Whether you’re exploring a new curiosity, investigating a mystery or troubling question, surveying a whole discipline or theme, or simply looking for a space to be, we’re here to help. From guidance with citations and discovery, to behind-the-scenes work protecting materials and making them accessible, each staff member brings unique strengths to support your learning. Come in and say hello. In the meantime, you can get to know us through the profiles below, and we look forward to meeting you in the library.
Cindy Derrenbacker
Library Manager
A warm welcome to the Dalton McCaughey Library, an ecumenical collaboration between the Australian Jesuits (Society of Jesus), the Uniting Church in Australia (VicTas), and Trinity College (Anglican). It is a pleasure to invite you into the library’s lovely space, a sanctuary conducive to reflection, research, reading, and writing in the midst of the Melbourne metropolis. If you are joining the library virtually, I hope you will find our website easy to navigate and instructive. Please do reach out if you need help:
I have graduate degrees in library science and theology, including a University of Divinity Graduate Certificate in Research Methodology. My current, interdisciplinary research interest is the intersection of theology with the built environment (the city), relying on a constructive, theological approach. In this regard I have been influenced by theologians Murray Rae (Otago), Kathryn Tanner (Yale), and Judith Wolfe (University of St. Andrews). For most of my career, I have served as a theological librarian in Canada and Australia. I have also been an architecture librarian. I enjoy learning, researching, and writing. I am also pleased to come alongside students, faculty, and library members, connecting them (you!) with salient print and electronic resources. At the DML, I have oversight for the overall library operation including the staff, services, and collections.
I am particularly concerned with the demise of sustained reading practices that I witness in the everyday. I believe there is a correlation between reading and writing and that, as Christians, we come from a historical tradition that emphasizes being a “People of the Book.” In his book, In Bed with the Word, Daniel Coleman argues that “we live in the midst of a transition from print culture to screen culture” and that “reading is countercultural because it requires quiet time, being slow and meditative and it is active rather than passive, being imaginative and dialogical. These qualities run in the opposite direction from the one in which Western commodity culture is heading.” As the year unfolds, I look forward to a more sustained discussion of Coleman’s work which I hope will persuade us all to read more intentionally.
Again, welcome to the DML!
Favourite subject classification
Carlos Lopez
Associate Librarian
I’ve been working at Dalton McCaughey Library (and before that the Joint Theological Library) since 1997.
My role involves a number of different tasks: Making sure the library resources are findable, identifiable and selectable from the library catalogue; keeping track of orders for new library material (books and ebooks); and assisting library members with their queries in person, by phone, or by email. I also, at one stage, managed the library’s IT resources: Working at a small library, like Dalton McCaughey Library, allows staff to broaden their set of tasks, something that might be closed to them in a larger library.
I find it very gratifying to help people with their library questions, then see those same people return, years later, as Ministers, or academics, or people keeping up their lifelong learning, knowing that Dalton McCaughey Library has helped them in some small way.
Favourite subject classification
I like the IX70-75 section because we have a supplementary classification for it (devised by the Jesuits in the 1970s or 1980s sometime) that provides more detailed subject areas for the section, but also contradicts our normal Pettee classification.
Adrian Cheng
Librarian—Patron Services and Collections
I’m the patron services librarian here at Dalton McCaughey Library, and I just might be the first person you meet when you visit us. I help manage our print journal collection and assist the Head Librarian and Associate Librarian with other collections and administrative tasks. I often help library users find digital and print materials through our online catalogue; and assist students with more in-depth enquiries about referencing, bibliographies and citations. An interesting and fun aspect of working at Dalton McCaughey Library is engaging with all the people who visit us each day: from university students to clergy; from independent researchers and historians to academics, theology students, lay preachers and self-directed, lifelong learners. Sometimes our work here is a bit like being a detective, as we investigate and procure useful materials and information to support our patrons’ research needs. I believe a key part of my role is embodying the welcoming and inclusive tradition of Dalton McCaughey Library, which is also reflected through our extensive and diverse collection.
Favourite subject classification
Andrew Hateley-Browne
Data and Communications
I work in the library supporting access to information, systems, and collections. I’m passionate about getting good things to the right people—and here at the library, that means sharing its collections in new ways, promoting events and services, and helping you find and use the resources that support your academic work and personal interests.
Critical, academic engagement with faith and religion is valuable. Wrestling with stories and ideas can be a deeply rewarding practice. It helps to have a library full of voices who have wrestled with them too. I like to think of every bookshelf as its own kind of community discussion—inviting your participation. Not every voice resonates, and that’s part of what makes a strong academic collection. The breadth matters. Dalton McCaughey Library is a special example of that because it brings together the rich collections of its three diverse, founding traditions.
Books—and all other formats of voice—have given me great joy, connection, and challenge. I hope your use of the library carries some of these marks as well. Whether you’re already exploring an idea, or starting something new: I’d like to help you access the right information. I want the library to feel like a place that prepares the way for your curiosity.