Morton Library NewsPage

On this page, you'll find short articles and stories about your constantly changing (and, we hope, improving!) Library.  For brief announcements or other practical data, please check our Public Services BLOG. 

Prof. Cannon's new book

Katie Geneva Cannon's important new book Womanist Theological Ethics: A Reader was the subject of this year's Dean's Forum on Faculty Research.  Dr. Cannon discussed the book with her two co-editors, Emilie Townes and Angela Sims.

Dr. Cannon is the Annie Scales Rogers Professor of Christian Ethics at UPSem, and is the author of Katie's Canon : Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community and Black Womanist Ethics.  She is the recipient of the 2011 Excellence in Teaching award of the American Academy of Religion (AAR).

Emilie M. Townes is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of African American Religion and Theology at Yale Divinity School.  The author or editor of several publications, she is a former president of the AAR.

Angela D. Sims is assistant professor of ethics and black church studies at Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, and the author of Ethical Complications of Lynching : Ida B. Wells' Interrogation of American Terror.  She is a 2008 PhD graduate of Union-PSCE.

The Dean's Forum on Faculty Research is an annual opportunity to focus on a major recent publication by a member of the Union Presbyterian faculty.  A guest panel comments on the book and discusses its major ideas with the author.  This year's Forum was especially well attended and enthusiastic!  Thanks to Dr. Cannon and the other speakers, and to staff who made the event a success. 

New book by 2009 alumnus about the first year of parish ministry

Our recent graduate Andrew Taylor-Troutman has just published his first book, called Take My Hand : A Theological Memoir.  Here is information from the Amazon website about Andrew and his new book :

"Take My Hand is an invitation to experience a year of preaching through the eyes of a first year pastor. Andrew Taylor-Troutman reflects on his experience of ministry as a dynamic exchange between his theological education and the people in the pews. Each chapter consists of Taylor-Troutman's reflections about a particular aspect of living as a faith community and concludes with a sermon exploring similar themes and ideas. As this book journeys through the Christian liturgical year, Taylor-Troutman considers a wide range of contemporary church issues, including the role of children in worship and the communal practice of Sabbath. He discusses topics as diverse as the rapture, the death penalty, and church league softball. Along the way, readers will laugh at Sunday morning bloopers, study biblical texts from new perspectives, wrestle with theological questions, and discover parallels between their own experience of faith and the life of this small, rural congregation. More than just a retrospective summary of events, Take My Hand poignantly illustrates how a pastor's work on Sunday morning grows out of his or her engagement with the hopes and fears of daily life, and the inspiring faith of men, women, and children in a church." 

New print reference for Bible study

We are pleased to announce that we have received the first two volumes in the new Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible series.  These first two volumes have appeared with the title The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible.

This reference contains lengthy, detailed, signed articles about each of the canonical & apocryphal books, clearly divided into sections with headings like Authorship, Date and Historical Context, Literary History, Canonical Status, Structure and Contents, Interpretation, Reception History.  Many have schematic outlines or other special features, such as historical maps.  And you will be happy to see that they have extensive, well-organized bibliographies pointing toward further research.

Here's what Oxford says about the new series :

“Recognizing the changing nature of biblical studies, Oxford University Press has been working on a new multivolume reference work on the Bible that would present both older and current interpretive strategies.  Under the general heading The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible, over the next several years we plan to produce several two-volume sets, each with its own distinguished editorial board.  Each set will have a specific focus, such as the Bible and theology, the Bible and law, the Bible and ethics, the Bible and the arts, the Bible and archaeology, and the Bible and gender studies.  The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible inaugurates this new series.”

You'll find this new resource in the Reference Room at Ref. CD 14 O982. 

Award for our emeritus Librarian, John B. Trotti

Our retired Library Director, Prof. John Boone Trotti, has been named recipient of the 2012 Award for Excellence in Theological Education by the Presbyterian Church (USA), to be recognized at the 2012 General Assembly in Pittsburgh.  He served as our Librarian 1968-2002.

Here are further details from Jerry L. Van Marter :

The award honors a person who has made an outstanding lifetime contribution to theological education in and for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

Trotti, a graduate of Davidson (N.C.) College, received his B.D. from Union Presbyterian Seminary and his Masters in Library Science from the University of North Carolina. He has taught Old Testament or religion and literature at Union seminary, Yale and Randolph-Macon (now Randolph) College. Before coming to Union, he served as pastor of Altavista (Va.) Presbyterian Church.

In the theological library community, Trotti pioneered a program whereby books and periodicals not needed by the Union Seminary library were shared with theological schools all over the world. Over 29 years, the program contributed more than 135,000 volumes to libraries in 103 institutions in 49 countries and has sparked creation of the American Theological Book Redistribution Project wherein many libraries share print resources with their international counterparts. In retirement, Trotti is still involved in leadership of the programs.

In addition, Trotti has served as vice-president and president of the American Theological Library Association (1976-1978), president of the Presbyterian Library Association (1973-1974) and as a member of the board of directors of the Historical Foundation of Presbyterian and Reformed Churches in Montreat, N.C. (1979-1986).

Please join us in celebrating Dr. Trotti's outstanding service and this wonderful distinction!

ASCH book award for Prof. Valeri

Prof. Mark Valeri's recent book, Heavenly Merchandize : How Religion Shaped Commerce in Puritan America (Princeton 2010) has been chosen for the 2011 Philip Schaff Prize by the American Society of Church History. 

This prestigious award is given for “the best book published in the two previous calendar years, originating in the North American scholarly community, which presents original research on any period in the history of Christianity, or makes a significant synthesizing scholarly contribution.”

Keith Francis, the Executive Secretary of the ASCH, wrote about this work :

The members of the committee were impressed by ‘the care and precision with which [you] traced shifts in puritan New England culture over the course of several generations’ as well as ‘the seriousness of [your] attempt to rethink the relationship between religion and commerce.’  You will also be happy to hear that your prose also garnered praise and admiration; scholarly and well-written: high praise indeed.

We congratulate Dr. Valeri and commend this exceptional book to our readers!

Union Seminary Bicentennial exhibits

In observance of Union Seminary's 200th year (1812-2012), many special events are planned on campus.  In the Library, we have installed an exhibit of images and objects from the long and eventful history of this institution. 

A photo gallery and artifacts display for PSCE is already in place in our Atrium.  We have also now installed a historical photos gallery for Union Seminary, composed of fascinating images, each one dated and captioned.

The two flat display cases near the Circulation Desk are filled with intriguing objects and a little explanatory text.  The large glass display cases beside the main entrance and the Rare Book Reading Room are exhibiting objects, photos and books that represent parts of our history.  And in the Reference Room, there are two great historic photos from the Seminary's Centennial in 1912.

We hope you will enjoy seeing these things, which are normally kept hidden in the Archives and only come forth to be viewed on special occasions.  Our Bicentennial is a unique event -- let's make the most of it!

New media resource : Counseling and Therapy in Video

The Library has purchased a one year video streaming license for the Alexander Street Press Counseling and Therapy in Video collection.  This collection will be used in pastoral care courses during the 2011-2012 and is one way that the Library will continue to offer media resources to faculty and students. Union and BTSR students and faculty now have access to this streaming collection of counseling videos.  

You can get to the collection by clicking the CTIV icon on this page or at the IRC home page.  If you are in the Library or connected to the UPSem network on campus via Ethernet, you will be taken directly to the resources where you can watch entire videos online or create your own clips.

If you are off campus or connected to the UPSem network wirelessly, click on the CTIV icon, and when presented with the EZProxy authentication screen, please log in as you do to get to our online databases.  UPSem students and faculty will use their network user ID and password, and BTSR students and faculty will use the login information provided when registering as a library patron.

For more detailed instructions about how to use this collection, please see the Help Pages on the CTIV site.  If you have further questions about how to use this collection, particularly in saving and sharing your video clips, please contact Ann Knox in the Instructional Resource Center at aknox@upsem.edu or (804) 278-4324.

Printed at Philadelphia, 1745-1845 [exhibit is now closed]

The Morton Library is pleased to announce a special display of rare books printed at Philadelphia between 1745 and 1845.

Items on display include the Confession of Faith and Larger and Shorter Catechisms printed by Benjamin Franklin in 1745, the first Hebrew Bible printed in America (1814), the earliest English translation of the Septuagint (1808), a history of the American Revolution written by a participant and published in 1789, John Marshall’s biography of George Washington (5 volumes, 1804-1807), and a magnificent, hand-colored world atlas (1814).  Particularly featured is the monumental first American edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1798) in 18 large volumes with 542 engraved plates. 

Our Rare Books cataloger, Ted Winter, has thoroughly researched each of these significant works and created excellent interpretive descriptions.  Read these texts to learn about Lydia Bailey and Jane Aitken (among America's earliest female entrepreneurs) and their role in Presbyterian history.  Find out about engraving and hand-coloring in early American cartography.  And so much more!

Two of the items on display will have pages turned each day—the Atlas to show a different map and the Chronological Tables for Every Day in the Year to show the entries for the current date.  So you will be able to stop by again and again to see new content!

We also recommend the following websites for online access to digitized versions of two of these exceptional works : Mathew Carey's General Atlas, and Shallus' Chronological Tables Vol. 1 (January-June) and Vol.2 (July-December).

The exhibit is now open and will run through June.

ATS and PSCE, 1914 - 1997 : "Preparing to Serve ... in a Christian Vocation"

We have now installed a display of special objects and mementoes from the worship, learning and common life of the General Assembly's Training School and the Presbyterian School of Christian Education. 

Many of us remember events from the life of this remarkable institution very fondly.  It's a pleasure to see hymnals from the Chapel, tableware from the dining hall, and other objects that bring back memories.

We have also selected some charming and fascinating photographs from the Archives and reproduced them for this exhibit.  These images are meant to represent the many and varied gifts of ATS-PSCE students, and the variety of ministries into which they were called. 

The title of the exhibit is taken from a publicity brochure about the school, printed in 1947.  You'll see the cover of that brochure reproduced in the exhibit.  Please join us in celebrating the outstanding professors and alums of this very special institution, and their many contributions to the life of the Church.

Early American Imprints Online

We are now able to offer access to the online edition of Early American Imprints, Series I. Evans (1639-1800), AND to Series II. Shaw-Shoemaker (1801-1814).

This resource includes the complete text of works cited in Charles Evans' American Bibliography, as augmented by Roger Bristol's Supplement to Evans' American Bibliography, and the American Bibliography by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker.

This searchable online collection provides the comprehensive set of books, pamphlets, broadsides, sermons, songs and many other documents published in colonial America and the early United States, and has long served as the definitive resource for research involving early American history, literature, religion, philosophy, and more.

Access to primary sources is always a challenge for scholars working with rare texts, locked up in archives and special collections in many cities and institutions.  Here is a way to have a look at scans of the actual pages of thousands of these texts, and you have the option of downloading or printing PDF or TIFF files of the scanned pages.  A very easy and effective search interface is provided.  Sample the power of this amazing resource, and we guarantee you will find yourself wanting to spend hours poring over these exceptional texts.

The 400th anniversary of the King James Bible -- now closed

In 1611, the first edition of a new translation of the Bible was published -- the one that later came to be known as the King James Version or the Authorized Version.

The Library owns two leaves of the very first printing of this historic work, the "editio princeps."  These pages are now on display in the flat glass case near the Circulation Desk.

The King James Bible was first printed in a large folio format suitable for pulpit Bibles, then in a smaller quarto format intended for individual reading and study.  The Library also owns two of these very early printings : a 1613 Bible made by Robert Barker, the King's Printer, and a 1625 Bible created by his partners and competitors, Norton and Bill. 

Come and see these remarkable and historic works, and read the interpretive text provided with them. 

MORE : We have added something to the display in the Library Atrium. It's a handsome facsimile  of the first roman-alphabet edition of the King James Bible of 1611.

Oxford University Press has brought out this accurate reproduction especially for the 400th Anniversary or Quatercentennial of the King James, possibly the most influential work of English literature ever published.

Because this is a replica, you may feel free to touch it, turn the pages, read selected passages, and look at the way the printing was designed. The entire Bible plus Apocrypha is included.

New website design for the IRC

Our Instructional Resource Center is happy to announce a newly redesigned website, which we hope will be easier and more pleasant to use.  The IRC website receives hundreds of visitors every month.  We want to provide these folks with timely information and an enjoyable experience.

On this site, you'll find detailed information about the staff and services of the Center.

The research guidance provided by the staff, the Tillich and Niebuhr audio recordings collections, the Interlibrary Loan and Extension services we offer -- all of these are accessible here.

Also, you'll find information about the two very popular and informative blogs sustained by Union Seminary's Christian Education department : the Children's Literature blog and the Theology and Film blog.  You can also find out about the Multimedia Creation Lab, intended to help you prepare digital teaching resources for church or classroom.

Come and visit the new site!  And if you have suggestions for additional information you'd like to see provided there, please let us know.

New blog connects Theology and Film [now discontinued]

Coming to a church fellowship hall near you : “The Blind Side.” “Freedom Writers.” “The Village.” “Under the Tuscan Sun.”  These Hollywood blockbusters and many more are part of Union Presbyterian Seminary’s new online resource for ministry on Theology and Film.

The new website, Theology and Film, provides a host of resources for linking stories and themes in films to the Biblical story and theological reflection.

For each film, there is a faith review, story elements, and theological themes to spark discussions. There is also a blog component to allow users to interact with the topics and reviews of resources that deal with theology and film.

Resources for the website grew out of a UPSem course, “Theology and Film,” taught on the Charlotte campus by Dr. Pamela Mitchell-Legg, the Sarah Belk Gambrell Professor of Christian Education. As part of their work in this course, students crafted learning resources that could be used for teaching in the church.

Continuing support and assistance for this blog comes from staff at the William Smith Morton Library on the Richmond campus.

Church groups are invited to pop some popcorn, enjoy a DVD and let the discussions begin using this new resource!

New online resource

The Encyclopedia of Religion in America is a multidisciplinary resource for the study of religion in American life.

This new online reference explores the origins, development, influence, and interrelations of the many faiths practiced in North America, including major world religions and emerging sects, cults and movements.

The ERA covers the significant denominations and movements that have originated or flourished in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, from the beginning of European settlement to the present. This work provides information about religious life among indigenous peoples, specific aspects of religious life, and the relationship of religion to the political, social, economic and cultural spheres.

Topics include : church-state issues, environment and ecology, gay and lesbian issues, religion and politics, religious life of African Americans and Latinos, religious thought, roles of women, and worship. To access this resource online, go to our Online Databases page.

New book display from My LibraryThing

I'm sure you've noticed the beautiful display in the right sidebar headed "Books from my LibraryThing."  We are now using the wonderful reader's website at LibraryThing.com to generate a display of new books added to the Morton Library collection.  We add about 300 new titles every month (of all print and media types), so you certainly won't see all of them here.  But we will select a representative sample every few days to add to this rotating display.  For more information on any particular book, just click on the cover and a box will open with publication details, including our Morton Library call number (look for the word "Tags").

There are also physical displays of new books in the Reference Room, and on the New Books shelves just outside the Reserve Room, near the Circulation Desk.  Enjoy!

New lectionary feature added to our Children's Literature resource

Our valuable Children's Literature blog has just added a great new feature!  Every Monday, the post on that blog will be about books that might help illustrate themes in the lectionary passages for the upcoming Sunday. The posts will include a link to summaries and reviews of the book, and a brief paragraph about some connections that can be made between that book and the scripture passage.

If you want to see the cumulative list of posts linking books and the Revised Common Lectionary, click on the "Lectionary Links" link in the Categories list on the blog's home page. All of the lectionary links are written by 2010 UPSem graduate Noell Rathbun.

We're also happy to announce that our Children's Literature blog now appears under lectionary resources on The Text This Week.  Many pastors and educators regularly use TextWeek to plan their worship, preaching and teaching, and to uncover excellent study and preparation resources geared to the lectionary readings throughout the church year.  TextWeek has eagerly agreed to add the Children's Literature resource to their roster of lectionary reflections, discussions and weblogs.  Look for it under the heading With Children on the TextWeek lectionary resources page (beginning with 5 Sept 2010).

Big changes to our Library electronic resources

A major rewrite of our Library web pages took place this summer. We dealt with two large-scale systemic changes : a new domain name for Union Presbyterian Seminary (www.upsem.edu) and a shift in several of our most important Library resources from one vendor to another.

You will find that there is a new interface for our most-used electronic resource, the ATLA Religion Database/ATLAS. We have also created a new Tutorial to help you use the special features of this resource platform.

We are also now offering a different alphabetical index to our online e-journals. We subscribe to over 6000 full-text periodicals, in a wide variety of subject areas. Click HERE to access the new e-journals A-Z list, or choose "Electronic journals list" under RESEARCH on our Library homepage.

There is also a new utility available that allows you to search a combination of our databases and the Library's own catalog at one time. It offers an A-Z list of many of our resources (with the exception of a few specialized databases that provide their own search interface). To add our Library catalog to your search, look under L for Library Catalog (ALEPH). Click to add a check in the little box beside each resource you want to search, and click on the button marked Continue.

We are still working to perfect these new features, and we ask your patience as these changes take effect; some of the links you encounter may be faulty. If you come across something that doesn't seem right, please ask our Reference Librarian, Paula Skreslet. She may be able to recommend another way to achieve your aims. We hope you will see a dramatic improvement in many of these electronic services.  It's always a little frustrating when you are faced with the unfamiliar, and we will do our best to help you deal with the transition.

Exhibit of 19th-century Sunday School materials

One of the most important developments in American Protestantism in the 19th century was the rise of the American Sunday School movement. In the 1790s, the first American Sabbath schools were modeled on British schools founded to teach reading and writing to poor children in the cities and to improve their morals. By the 1820s, Sunday Schools in America had begun to include children of all classes, and at the same time they became more focused on religious instruction and the conversion of the young.

A powerful adjunct to the 19th century Sunday School was the Sunday School library. It's estimated that several million small books were produced for the Sunday Schools between 1820 and 1880. The largest publishing houses for these books were the American Sunday School Union, the American Tract Society, the Presbyterian Board of Publication in Philadelphia, and the Presbyterian Committee of Publication (PCUS), located here in Richmond.

The William Smith Morton Library houses a significant collection of more than 500 of these 19th century Sunday School books; there are only three research-level collections of this material in the United States, and we have one of them.

The Library is currently presenting a display of selected items from the collection in the display cases in the entry hall of the Library. An additional display of 19th century periodicals for children and families is mounted in the flat display case in the atrium near the Circulation Desk.  Come and see these charming artifacts, and be sure to read the excellent interpretation provided by Ted Winter, our rare books cataloger.  You'll learn about the history of Christian education, methods of teaching the Christian faith, and directing moral development & spiritual life for children in the Victorian age.

 

Union Presbyterian Seminary