The Rev. Prof. Robert Roethemeyer has served as Director of Library and Information Services at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne Indiana since June 1997. From May 1988 until May 1997, he served as Public Services Librarian at Concordia Seminary in Saint Louis, from where he earned his Master of Divinity in 1986. His Master of Arts in Library Science is from the University of Missouri in Columbia.

A tenured associate professor at CTSFW, he led the institutional self-study process that culminated in a ten-year reaffirmation of accreditation from both the Association of Theological Schools and the Higher Learning Commission in 2010 and has worked to integrate traditional and non-traditional information resources into the teaching and learning life of the campus and ultimately into the library renovation and expansion project that culminated in the dedication of  the Wayne and Barbara Kroemer Library complex in 2015.

On campus, he has served in many other capacities beyond the library and, since the fall of 2014, he serves on the President’s Executive Leadership Team as Vice President of Strategic Planning and Mission Execution, guiding Strategic Planning, Assessment, Accreditation, Archives, and Institutional Research.

Away from campus, he served five years (2010-2015), two as chair, on the Board of Directors of the Midwest Collaborative for Library Services. MCLS is comprised of 840 libraries of all types and sizes in Indiana and Michigan. He currently serves on the Private Academic Library Network of Indiana Board of Directors and on the Indiana State Library Resource Sharing Committee.

Nationally, he is a Mentor in the “Creating Leaders of Tomorrow” program of the American Theological Library Association. In 2017, he was appointed Co-chair of the American Theological Library Association (ATLA) Local Host Committee for the 2018 Annual Conference in Indianapolis and also to a three-year term on the Annual Conference Committee of the American Theological Library Association (ATLA).

Internationally, he launched the Chemnitz Library Initiative at the International Lutheran Council (ILC) Theological Seminaries World Conference in Palanga, Lithuania, August 2013. Aligned with LCMS President Harrison’s Global Seminary Initiative, the Chemnitz Library Initiative reaches seminary to seminary and library to library to uplift global theological education. He has made evaluative and consultative visits to sister seminaries in Nigeria, Kenya, India, Togo, Ghana, Ethiopia, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Siberia, South Australia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Hong Kong, England, Lithuania, and Latvia.

In 2013-14, he and his wife, Kay, spent a month in Accra, Ghana, West Africa, establishing the library in the new building for the Lutheran Seminary of Ghana. In 2015, he prepared the expanded library in Matongo, Kenya, East Africa, for the dedication.

From 2015-2017, he worked with the Mekane Yesus Seminary in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, East Africa, to establish the first accredited Lutheran Master of Arts in Theology degree on the continent of Africa. In 2016-2017, he consulted with LCMS Mission Advancement on a grant for a total library makeover at Jonathan Ekong Memorial Lutheran Seminary, Obot Idim, Nigeria. The grant was awarded in September 2017; construction began in January 2018.

Professor Roethemeyer and his wife, Kay, have a grown daughter, Christina.