Posted on November 24, 2020
Happy Thanksgiving! In commemoration of the Thanksgiving holiday, William Smith Morton Library will close at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, November 25th, to reopen at 9:00 a.m. on Monday, November 30th. The Charlotte Campus Library will reopen at noon on Tuesday, December 1st.
It has been a challenging year, but we are grateful for your understanding and support. Thank you!
Posted on November 13, 2020
It’s hard to believe, but it’s already time to think about Advent preparations! November 28, 2020, is the first Sunday in Advent (Year C). The library has lots of resources to help you plan meaningful services for your worshiping congregation.
If you’re in the Richmond area, why not make an appointment today to come in? We would love to help you find just what you need for your Advent preparations!
Posted on November 9, 2020
The Library has added an online research guide to support the mission of the Center for Social Justice and Reconciliation with a collection of digital and physical resources pertaining to the CSJR’s areas of focus including: urban ministry, social justice ministry, contemporary issues, black church studies, LGBTQ ministry/justice issues, and evangelism from a social justice perspective. Each area of study has been given a separate page in the guide and you may use a navigation menu on the left to explore resources associated with these emphases.
Although the CSJR Research Guide provides links to CSJR-related eBooks and eJournals, it is not a comprehensive list and other useful digital and physical resources are discoverable through a library catalog or database search.
The Center for Social Justice and Reconciliation is located on the Seminary’s Charlotte campus and is directed by Associate Professor of Bible Rodney S. Sadler Jr. Grounded in a ministry that is mandated in scripture, its two main goals are to remind people in Seminary of the significance of social justice work as part of ministry and to help bring the activist community into the Seminary community.
To access a full list of the UPSem Library’s online Research Guides, see the Research Guides menu at https://library.upsem.edu or visit https://upsem.libguides.com.
For questions regarding digital resource discovery and access, please contact Ryan Douthat at (804) 278-4217 or email rdouthat@upsem.edu.
Posted on November 6, 2020
The Seminary Library has benefited greatly from book donations in the past, and has continued to receive offers of donated books throughout the pandemic period. We are very grateful for these offers, but one of the earliest decisions that we made while transitioning to modes of service that will protect patrons and staff during the pandemic was to temporarily suspend the acceptance of book donations. With students and faculty working online and Library staff rotating in and out of Library buildings on weekdays to provide essential services while limiting potential exposure to the virus, we simply don’t have enough on-site staff time to process book donations efficiently, or sufficient space to store donated books until they can be processed. So, our plan is to suspend book donations for now (a step that many if not most libraries are taking) but to accept book donations again when our campuses reopen fully and staff have returned to working at the Library on a daily basis.
I look forward to the day when we’ll be able to accept book donations again and I apologize sincerely for any inconvenience caused by this temporary suspension. In the meantime, thank you for understanding and supporting the safe, socially-distant work that is underway at both campus Library locations to provide a range of modified/extended services while the pandemic lasts:
If you have questions about any of these services, check out our updated Richmond Staff page, which lists key Library contacts in Richmond and Charlotte.
Christopher Richardson, Seminary Librarian
Posted on October 30, 2020
Huff, Barry R., and Patricia Vesely, eds. Seeking Wisdom’s Depths and Torah’s Heights: Essays in Honor of Samuel E. Balentine. Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2020. Catalog link here.
Dr. Samuel E. Balentine is Union Presbyterian Seminary’s Professor of Old Testament and Director of Graduate Studies Emeritus. In honor of his 70th birthday and his retirement in June 2020, two of Dr. Balentine’s former UPSem students, Barry R. Huff (Ph.D. ‘17) and Patricia Vesely (Ph.D. ‘17), have edited this Festschrift. Contributors include a range of voices, from eminent senior scholars in Hebrew Bible studies, to respected mid-career scholars, to up-and-coming new voices. The volume’s interdisciplinary content and its collegial tone make it a joy to read. Throughout, the contributors follow the model set by Dr. Balentine, applying both academic rigor and pragmatic theological interpretation to biblical texts.
Of particular interest for those of us here at UPSem, Seeking Wisdom’s Depths and Torah’s Heights showcases the academic talents of many of our own faculty and alumni, whose various relationships to Dr. Balentine began or were nurtured here. In addition to the editors, Phillip Michael Lasater (M.Div. ‘11) and Heather Woodworth Brannon (M.Div. ‘19) also studied here under Dr. Balentine’s tutelage. Current faculty members E. Carson Brisson (Associate Professor of Bible and Biblical Languages) and Samuel L. Adams (Mary Jane and John F. McNair Chair of Biblical Studies and Professor of Old Testament) are also contributors, as are former faculty members Andreas Schuele (Professor of Old Testament and Dean of the School of Theology at University of Leipzig) and William P. Brown (William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary), while Mark E. Biddle (Acting Dean at Sophia Theological Seminary) is formerly of Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. Especially noteworthy is the fact that the volume contains the last published article that S. Dean McBride, Jr. (Cyrus H. McCormick Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Interpretation at UPSem, 1984-2007) wrote before his death in May 2020. McBride presents a study of the reception history of the book of Exodus specifically within the 1560 Geneva Bible, an annotated translation from the Reformation era that was influential on later biblical translations including the King James Version, and has had enormous significance for biblical scholarship in the Reformed tradition in particular.
Seeking Wisdom’s Depths and Torah’s Heights opens with a biographical sketch of Dr. Balentine by his friend and colleague, E. Carson Brisson. Dr. Brisson’s biography, which includes anecdotes and messages to Dr. Balentine from his wife and children and from Dr. Brisson himself, is deeply personal, nearly poetic, and it sets the tone for the whole volume. This is not merely an assemblage of new research; rather, it is a celebration of Dr. Balentine’s work by his peers, colleagues, friends, and students, and their affection for the man himself is as readily apparent as their respect for his work. The book then takes as its structural elements two areas of the Hebrew Bible that have predominated in Dr. Balentine’s own research: the Torah and the Wisdom literature, especially the book of Job. There are five essays related to Torah and six on Wisdom material, and a third short section of three articles that deal with the interface of the two: “Torah in Wisdom and Wisdom as Torah.” The presence of this third section does much to integrate the volume’s two foci and unify the collection into a coherent whole. Dr. Samuel Adams’ article is a highlight here: he explores the way the author of Sirach receives and adapts written material about Israel’s priestly figures in the Second Temple period, in order to locate Wisdom within Torah.
One striking feature of this volume is the range of interdisciplinary research that is represented. Dr. Balentine’s own work has long displayed his interest in cross-pollinating the study of the Bible with insights from other fields of study. Several of the contributors (Biddle, Schuele, and Brown, as well as Walter Brueggemann and John Barton) engage the field of ethics; this echoes Dr. Balentine’s own regular application of ethical interpretation to the Bible. Other fields of study that here become conversation partners for biblical interpretation include quantum physics (Biddle), art history (Heidi J. Hornik and Mikeal Joseph Parsons, Huff), epistemology (Brannon), psychology (Brown), and dance (Vesely). Thanks in no small part to Dr. Balentine’s work, biblical scholars recognize more and more the necessity of looking beyond the written word alone in order to explore how people have interpreted the Bible in nonverbal ways. The prominent inclusion in this volume of the arts as media for theological interpretation reflects Dr. Balentine’s long advocacy for including the study of popular modes of cultural expression as an important part of a biblical text’s reception history.
Another noteworthy quality of this book is the way it models constructive, collegial scholarship. John Barton’s article is a standout here. Barton, a distinguished senior scholar of the Hebrew Bible, revisits an argument he published in 1999 about whether virtue ethics are native to the Bible, in light of the work of two younger scholars, Anne W. Stewart and Patricia Vesely. Stewart has argued in direct opposition to Barton’s position, and Barton thoughtfully considers her argument, finds it compelling, and modulates his own position in response. Barton then draws on Vesely’s work to further reinforce his points of agreement with Stewart. The article beautifully models a scholarly conversation in which new contributions are met with open-minded willingness to listen and seek common ground. Another example of constructive intergenerational scholarship in the book is the contribution co-authored by Heidi J. Hornik (Professor of Italian Renaissance and Baroque Art History at Baylor University) and her son Mikeal Joseph Parsons. The article examines how the 17th-century painting Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife by Paolo Finoglio, which Parsons studied as part of his college minor studies, interprets the biblical text in its use, for instance, of light and of painting techniques for cloth.
New academic insights, well argued and gleaned from intellectual rigor, are always welcome, and Seeking Wisdom’s Depths and Torah’s Heights provides them. But the book’s greatest virtue is the success with which it reflects Sam Balentine’s own career-spanning model for how to engage in constructive scholarship: cross-disciplinary pollination of ideas, fruitful collaboration, and a willingness to approach ideas (both old and new) with an open mind, in order to that the scholarly conversation might move towards points of shared consensus. In this way especially, this book honors Balentine’s exceptional teaching as much as it does his excellent scholarship.
Posted on October 26, 2020
With more students living off-campus this year, and some far from campus, it’s important to remember that – in addition to electronic resources, the Library Research Appointment service in Richmond, the week-day pick up service in Richmond, interlibrary loan, the ability to request Richmond items in Charlotte, Charlotte Library hours, and our virtual reference desk and virtual reference appointment services – UPSem students and faculty members also have circulation privileges at academic Libraries across the country through several reciprocal borrowing agreements.
The most far-reaching of these agreements is ATLA’s Reciprocal Borrowing Program, which provides our students and faculty with borrowing privileges at 124 other theological libraries in North America, as shown on this map and this spreadsheet. To participate, just show proof of current UPSem enrollment/employment to set up a circulating account at the other library, usually by logging into UPSem’s Blackboard from the other location.
We also participate in state-level reciprocal borrowing programs in Virginia, through the VIVA Consortium, and in North Carolina through the Carolinas Theological Library Consortium (CTLC). The VIVA consortium provides our students and faculty with borrowing privileges at 50 other institutions of higher learning in Virginia, listed here, including all 10 universities in the greater Richmond area. The CTLC provides borrowing privileges at 14 other theological schools in North Carolina, listed here.
Finally, for those in the Charlotte area, we have a free-standing reciprocal borrowing agreement with Queens University of Charlotte. For more information on that agreement, please contact our Library Director in Charlotte, David Mayo.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it would be a good idea to contact these other libraries directly before visiting, to learn more about how they’re operating under the circumstances. At our Library, for example, students and faculty from other schools may set up accounts using our online Patron Registration Forms for Richmond or Charlotte and then check out items through the week-day pick up service in Richmond or during Charlotte’s library hours.
We hope that these reciprocal borrowing agreements will provide additional support for your studies this year, and in years to come!
Dr .Christopher Richardson
Seminary Librarian
Posted on October 16, 2020
Have you ever read a scholarly article and wondered how the author knew how to transliterate a verse from the Hebrew Bible, or how to cite a quotation from Josephus? Citing the sources you’ve used for your research can be a big challenge! One great resource that can really help when citing sources for biblical studies research is the SBL Handbook of Style for Biblical Studies and Related Disciplines (2nd ed., ed. Billie Jean Collins, Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014). The library has this resource in electronic format, so you can access it whenever you need it with your bar code and PIN number. The SBL Handbook is published by the Society of Biblical Literature and thus all its information is specifically tailored to the stylistic norms of the field of biblical studies.
The section you will probably find yourself referencing again and again is chapter 6, “Notes and Bibliographies.” This chapter contains instructions for and examples of how to cite a wide variety of resources in proper SBL style: books with single or multiple authors, journal articles, books in series (like biblical commentaries!), unpublished dissertations, online databases, and websites or blogs are just some of the most common kinds of works you might need to cite. But this chapter also gives information on how to properly cite ancient sources, patristic writings, unpublished papers presented at academic conferences, and volumes from the Loeb Classical Library, as well as other kinds of highly discipline-specific resources that are not likely to be addressed in general-use style guides such as the Chicago Manual of Style. The chapter provides examples of how properly to cite these sources in a footnote as well as in a bibliography.
Additionally, the SBL Handbook offers a chapter on proper abbreviations for ancient texts, books of the Bible, Pseudepigraphic texts, the Dead Sea scrolls, modern versions of the Bible, modern journals, and many other resources. Another chapter addresses standards for transliterating Hebrew, Greek, and other ancient languages — something you will likely need to do for any upper-level biblical studies course. The chapter even explains how to transcribe ancient texts so that your reader understands where damage to a manuscript has left part of the text illegible or uncertain.
The Handbook also contains general style information that every writer in the field of biblical studies needs to keep ready to hand. There is some information on how to use commas and other punctuation marks properly, how to form possessives correctly, and when to spell out numbers. There is also discipline-specific information such as how to use punctuation to separate citations of ancient and biblical texts, when to italicize foreign words and phrases versus when to leave unitalicized words that have come into English from other languages. The Handbook also includes an important section on how to ensure that the language you use is as bias-free as possible.
If you are planning to submit your work to a journal for publication, the SBL Handbook contains a chapter detailing the responsibilities of an author. These are things you need to do before you submit your article. If the work you submit to a journal is already properly stylistically formatted, you have headed off one potential round of “revise and resubmit,” and you will also have ensured that the editors of the journal to which you’re submitting your work are not distracted from the important content of your argument by style errors.
The SBL Handbook of Style is a trove of good information for seminarians and professional writers in biblical studies alike. Before you go ask your professor how to format all the citations for your research paper this semester, take a moment to consult at the SBL Handbook — it will probably have the information you need, and your professor will thank you!
Posted on October 12, 2020
by Christopher Richardson, Seminary Librarian
“Is the Library still closed?” I reply to that question from time to time and my short answer is that the Library has remained open, under COVID-19 protocols, since the Seminary’s shift to online learning in mid-March of this year, but that’s not the whole story – especially for alumni users, paid clergy and religious leaders, reciprocal borrowers from other schools, guest users in Charlotte, and public account holders enrolled before April 26, 2008 in Richmond. Here’s a more detailed answer.
Under COVID-19 protocols, access to the Library’s physical spaces has been limited since mid-March, and continues to be limited in some ways, due to the threat of COVID-19 infection. The Library’s online collections and services, on the other hand, have remained accessible (in keeping with licensing guidelines) and have been expanded since March. Most of the Library’s current COVID-19 service protocols have been in place since June 16, but were expanded at the beginning of the fall semester. They include:
Under these protocols, Alumni patrons may check out physical materials through the weekday pickup service in Richmond, Library service hours in Charlotte, or the Library’s Extension Service for Alumni (by mail). Alumni may also access electronic resources through the Library’s Alumni Research Portal, which includes but exceeds the number of resources available through the ATLAS for Alumni database subscription.
Other categories of Library users – including paid clergy and religious leaders, reciprocal borrowers from other schools, and public account holders enrolled before April 26, 2008 – may access physical items through the weekday pickup service in Richmond and electronic resources through a Member Research Portal that focuses on providing high-quality open-access materials from many sources through a single search interface. For additional information about access to physical Library materials in Charlotte, contact Charlotte Library Director, David Mayo, at dmayo@upsem.edu.
New accounts with circulation privileges may be requested, as usual, through our Patron Registration Pages for Richmond and for Charlotte.
As posted on the Seminary’s Coronavirus Alerts page on October 5 by President Brian Blount:
Given the ongoing health concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the physical campuses of Union Presbyterian Seminary (Richmond and Charlotte) will continue to be closed during the Spring and May 2021 terms in Richmond and the Spring and Spring 2 terms in Charlotte. Classes will continue to be delivered in online formats… Staff will continue to work under present COVID-19 protocols: working primarily from home, but coming to campus when necessary to accomplish essential duties or as directed by supervisors. In particular, library operations on both campuses will continue under present COVID-19 protocols. (https://www.upsem.edu/about/coronavirus-communications/, accessed 10/12/2020)
The rationale behind these protocols is that they fulfill the focal point of our Library’s purpose statement, to provide “print and electronic resources as well as library instruction to support the curricular needs and research activities of Union Presbyterian Seminary,” while limiting the number and range of individuals who have access to Library buildings for the sake of the safety of patrons and staff at a time when the path and threat of the COVID-19 pandemic are still uncertain and concerning.
Thank you for understanding and working within these protocols, as we do, to maintain access to library resources and services amid a rapidly changing public health situation. To keep up with the latest Library updates, please consider following the Library’s Facebook page, or the Seminary’s Facebook page for alumni. News and tips will also be posted here, to the “News and Events” section of the Library web site.
Posted on October 9, 2020
The ATLA Religion and ATLAS Plus databases are some of the Library’s richest resources for finding research materials in the fields of biblical studies, theology, church history, pastoral care, and other areas related to religion. A basic keyword search from the library’s catalog page, if you select the “Database Results” tab at the top of the left column, will yield results from these and other databases. However, ATLA’s own interface provides some powerful search tools that the catalog page does not. You can access these databases from the Library’s homepage by going to the “Library Resources” tab at the top of the page, selecting “Online Databases,” and clicking on “ATLA-RDB and ATLAS Plus index & e-journals.”
You can, of course, search the database by keyword, simply by putting your search terms into the search bar. You can also use the drop-down menu next to the search bar to specify whether you want to search for your term in the titles of articles, the abstract, the author’s name, or several other categories. The drop-down menu also lets you search by the year in which a particular church document was published, or search by scripture citation. The ability to search by scripture citation is perhaps the best reason to search from within the database itself rather than from the library’s catalog page. Sometimes simply searching scripture citations from the drop-down menu doesn’t bring up the information you need, though. The database doesn’t always recognize what you’re asking it for. Fortunately, there are multiple ways to search by scripture reference in ATLA!
If you’d like to search by a specific verse, you can click on the word “Scriptures” at the very top left side of the page. Scroll down or page over until you find the book of the Bible you need, then click “Expand” next to the book name. Do the same for the chapter of the book, and then the verse. If I search for Leviticus⇒Chapter 10⇒Verse 10, the search will retrieve articles tagged with that specific verse, but also articles tagged with scripture references within which that verse occurs (ex., Lev 10 or Lev 1-16).
If you’d like to search scripture references a little more broadly than by specific verse, you can also use the Indexes search feature. Let’s say you’d like to find articles on the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13. In the same menu bar with the “Scriptures” option, highlight “More” at the right-side end of the list, and select “Indexes.” The “Browse an Index” drop-down menu will allow you to search by “Bible Citation.” (You can also search in this way for references from the Babylonian Talmud, the Mishnah, the Quran, and the Book of Mormon.) Browsing for “Matthew 6” will bring up a list of scripture citations that exist within the database, and you can tick each box that is relevant to your needs. (It’s not a bad idea to move backward as well as forward — for instance, the page before the one for Matthew 6 includes a listing for “Matthew 5:43-6:18,” which would also include the Lord’s Prayer.) In this way, you can ensure that you’re finding as much material on your scripture reference as possible.
You can learn even more about how to use the ATLA Religion and ATLAS Plus databases effectively by visiting our LibGuide: Using ATLA Religion Database & ATLA Plus https://upsem.libguides.com/atla/home.
Posted on June 10, 2020
While access to the Library building remains limited during the 2020 fall semester, we offer a week-day touchless pick-up service for physical library materials at the front door of Morton Library. To use this service :
1. Click the My Account button below the “Search Library Collections” field at https://library.upsem.edu/, or from any search results screen in the catalog, and log in using your account number and PIN.
2. Place holds on items that you would like to pick up (up to 10 items per day).
3. Holds received by 8am will be available for pickup at 12 noon, and holds received by 12 noon will be available for pickup at 3pm (weekends and holidays excluded). If you arrive after the scheduled pick-up time, please call the Library’s front desk at 804-278-4310. No pickups will be possible after 3:30 p.m.
If you would like to create a new library account, please visit our Patron Registration Page.
We will also offer appointment-based access to the Library building for UPSem students, faculty and staff . Students, faculty and staff are able to schedule appointments between 10am and 3pm weekdays (excluding holidays), via a link from this page. Two appointments will be available each hour, with a maximum of two hourly appointments per person per day. These appointments should be made for research purposes, and will allow for items to be checked out at the Library’s front desk. Masks or other face coverings will be required during the appointment, and Library staff will also be wearing masks. Please bring your own mask or face covering if at all possible.
Additionally, InterLibrary Loans may be picked up by UPSem students, faculty and staff by appointment using the service described above. For more information or to request an Interlibrary Loan, please visit our InterLibrary Loan page. For questions about an Interlibrary Loan, please email Mengistu Lemma at mlemma@upsem.edu.
Other Library services, including reference assistance and instruction, will continue to be delivered remotely:
NO BOOK DONATIONS : Until further notice, we are unable to accept book donations due to limited staffing.
In light of the continuing threat of COVID-19, access to the Library building will be limited to UPSem students, faculty, and staff (by appointment) for the foreseeable future, but we are glad to make circulating materials available to all Library account holders via the touchless pick-up service described above, and the staff members listed above are happy to help with any questions that you may have.
Our Charlotte campus is out of session and that Library remains closed.
Thank you for your understanding as we work to deliver library services in a safe way throughout the continuing pandemic.