Common Awards: The Church and the Academy in Partnership; How a Collaboration Between the Church of England and Durham University is Supporting Theological Libraries

Common Awards is a partnership led by the Church of England and Durham University which delivers academic programmes to students preparing for ministry in mainly Anglican training institutions in the UK. In 2016 it launched the Common Awards Hub, a shared central platform offering a wider range of online resources than would otherwise be available to most of its institutions and at a lower cost. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March 2020, the infrastructure was in place to enable Common Awards to respond rapidly to the crisis by providing access to the additional online resources which the situation demanded. This chapter tells the story of how the Common Awards Hub came into being and how it has evolved. It explores its strengths and weaknesses, its impact on students and librarians, and its implications for pedagogy and diversity. It also reflects on the wider vision of the Hub to support lifelong learning within the church.