Institutional profile · established 2026
An independent Christian
public digital library.
ChristBooks.org is a functional online library serving the public through Christian book discovery, preservation, reading, and responsible access. It is independently governed and online-only—not a government agency, physical branch system, school, or degree-granting institution.
What “public” means here: ChristBooks serves the public. The word does not claim governmental status, taxing authority, public funding, or academic accreditation.
Public service
Library functions,
not merely a website.
Catalog & discovery
A searchable catalog organizes Christian works by title, author, subject, source, and collection.
Patron accounts
Google sign-in supports patron identity and personal reading shelves. Licensed resources require additional server-side authorization.
Rights stewardship
Item-level provenance distinguishes public-domain, open-license, permission-based, and restricted licensed works.
Preservation
Source identity, hashes, structure, rights evidence, and correction history are retained when legally permitted.
Reference & support
Readers and partners may request account help, accessibility support, corrections, and rights review.
Public accountability
Published policies define selection, privacy, acceptable use, accessibility, reconsideration, and continuity.
Governance
Independent,
documented,
accountable.
Library administration is accountable for institutional policy, collection stewardship, vendor relationships, privacy, security, accessibility, preservation, and truthful reporting.
Material rights, licensing, privacy, and preservation decisions are documented. Administrative access is limited to explicitly authorized personnel. Purchases and legal agreements require an authorized human signatory.
ChristBooks does not claim ALA accreditation, governmental public-library status, academic accreditation, nonprofit tax exemption, OCLC membership, or vendor approval unless current documentary evidence supports the claim.
Institutional policies
The standards governing
the library.
Collection development
ChristBooks collects complete English-language works that are substantively Christian. Admission requires identifiable edition information, Christian relevance, usable complete text, adequate metadata, and documented authority to provide access. AI-created books remain clearly separated from human-authored and human-verified collections.
Rights and licensing
Every resource requires a recorded rights basis: public domain, open license, direct permission, or institutional license. Commercially licensed ebooks are never made openly downloadable unless the controlling agreement expressly permits it. Uncertain rights fail closed.
Patron privacy
ChristBooks minimizes personal data, does not sell patron reading histories, separates optional marketing consent, and limits access to authorized operational needs. Retention is limited to contractual, security, legal, and service requirements.
Acceptable use
Patrons may not share restricted credentials, defeat access controls, systematically harvest the catalog, redistribute licensed works, remove rights notices, disrupt service, or use library systems unlawfully.
Accessibility
The library seeks keyboard-accessible, readable, semantically structured experiences and accessible source formats. Known barriers are documented and prioritized for repair. Accessibility assistance is available through the administrative contact.
Preservation and continuity
ChristBooks preserves provenance, rights evidence, source and content hashes, structure, and correction history when permitted. Critical records require recoverable backups, integrity checking, least privilege, and documented restoration procedures.
Reconsideration and corrections
Readers, authors, rights holders, and partners may request correction, rights review, accessibility review, or reconsideration by identifying the work and concern. Decisions follow published criteria and preserve correction history.
Licensed materials
Public mission.
Controlled access.
The public catalog may be browsed without an account. Public-domain and openly licensed works may be delivered according to their verified rights.
Restricted resources require verified patron identity and a server-side authorization decision enforcing the permitted population, territory, loan period, concurrency, download rules, and license term. Restricted files are never stored as public assets or exposed through guessable URLs.
ChristBooks works with each vendor to approve account, proxy, IP, or institutional-login authentication before delivering that vendor’s licensed content.
Institutional standard
Claims follow evidence.
ChristBooks uses four control states so a written policy is never mistaken for an operating or legally established capability.
Current evidence has been inspected and retained.
The control is operating; periodic verification may still be due.
A requirement exists, but the control is not yet operating.
Evidence is insufficient, so no completion claim is made.
| Control | Current public status | Required next evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Institutional identity, mission, and governance | Verified | Annual review |
| Public online catalog and patron interface | Implemented | Dated service measurements |
| Collection, rights, privacy, and accessibility policies | Verified | Annual and material-change review |
| Licensed-content authorization | Planned | Vendor-approved method and server-side test |
| Independent backup and successful restoration test | Awaiting evidence | Recorded backup and recovery test |
| Legal entity, EIN, and tax status | Not claimed | Formation and official records, if established |
| Vendor acceptance | Vendor-specific | Executed agreement or written approval |
The complete administrative standard also covers security and incident response, records retention, backup and recovery, vendor due diligence, corrections, and annual reporting. Supporting evidence is provided privately when disclosure is appropriate.
Publishers & library vendors
Institutional due diligence.
Available evidence
- Institutional identity and public mission
- Governance and administrative accountability
- Collection and rights policies
- Patron authentication and controlled-access standard
- Privacy, accessibility, and acceptable-use commitments
- Preservation and correction procedures
Supplied when established or requested
- Legal entity, formation, EIN, and tax-status records
- Authorized signatory and governance records
- Dated catalog and patron measurements
- Authentication and authorization architecture
- Sample bibliographic and rights records
- Executed vendor agreements and approved delivery model
Institutional inquiries
Partner with ChristBooks.
For licensing, publishing, authentication, catalog, rights, or institutional-verification questions, contact library administration.