Find treasure in New College Library

We’re welcoming Divinity postgraduate students today for library treasure hunt activities to help them get to know New College Library.

Follow the clues to discover New College Library's treasure

What is this? Biblical Studies students can follow the clues to discover New College Library’s treasure

Students on the five postgraduate programmes have already had access to brief video tutorials for Biblical Studies, Religious Studies, Science and Religion, Theology in History and World Christianity.

Further programme specific treasure hunt activities aim to encourage students to find material relevant to their courses in a variety of print and online locations.

Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian, Divinity

 

‘W’ Collection provides a window into the world of eighteenth-century India

One of the current Special Collections cataloguing projects at New College Library is the W4/5 section which includes works on ecclesiastical history and theology. In this collection we were pleased to discover three volumes of the Halle reports, a Protestant missionary magazine from a Danish mission to India in the eighteenth century.

Image from : Dansk-hallensiske mission (Tranquebar, India) Der Königl. Dänischen Missionarien aus Ost-Indien eingesandter ausführlichen Berichten. Erster ( -neunter) Theil. 1718-1772 New College Library W.169-171

Image from : Dansk-hallensiske mission (Tranquebar, India) Der Königl. Dänischen Missionarien aus Ost-Indien eingesandter ausführlichen Berichten. Erster ( -neunter) Theil. 1718-1772 New College Library W.169-171. Image courtesy of Paul Nicholas

Advised by Dr. A. H. Francke (1663–1727), a professor of divinity in the University of Halle in Saxony, King Frederick IV of Denmark sent two missionaries from Halle to Tranquebar in India. In all over 60 missionaries were sent from Halle in the course of the eighteenth century, and they published their reports as Der Königl. Dänischen Missionarien aus Ost-Indien eingesandter ausführlichen Berichten. Continue reading

Steps towards equality in New College Library Class Photographs

A guest post by Chloe Elder, New College Library Special Collections Digitisation intern

From the depths of New College Library’s archives, a selection of class photographs from 1857 to 1930 has been digitised and uploaded to the Open Books website, accessible at openbooks.is.ed.ac.uk. The photographs show the students and staff of New College’s past, each of whom make up a part of the School’s long history. You may recognise, for example, Principal Robert Rainy, who lends his name to the College’s Rainy Hall, sat front and centre of every photo during his time as principal from 1874 to 1900. And behind Rainy and succeeding principals stand rows of students, ascending the same courtyard steps that today welcome over 400 undergraduate and postgraduate students to the School of Divinity.

New College Library Class Photo Winter Session, 1923-1924

New College Library Class Photo Winter Session, 1923-1924

Continue reading

Digital video resources for Divinity

I’ve been following up from student feedback questions  following library induction sessions last week, and one really interesting one has been about library access to digital video recordings.

The Library has recently purchased access to the large and comprehensive online streaming video resource Academic Video Online from Alexander Street Press. Containing over 50,000 recordings overall, it currently lists 324 videos on ‘Religion & Thought’ – and that’s just the start.

Academic_Video_Online_pic

Academic Video Online allows you to create and share playlists and create clips, permalinks are also available to embed or link to from other sites. Transcripts are available for many videos and these can be searched. Continue reading

Open Access Journals for Religious Studies

We’ve recently added some new open access journals for Religious Studies to DiscoverEd, aiming to make what’s freely available online as discoverable as possible for University of Edinburgh students.

SouthAsianist

These include the South Asianist, which is produced by the University of Edinburgh, to inspire critical debate on social, environmental, linguistic, religious, political and economic issues in South Asia. Continue reading

Global journals for World Christianity

The University of Edinburgh subscribes to a wide range of academic journals for the School of Divinity, but we’re also active in making the most of open access journals that are freely available on the web. Anabaptist Witness is one of these, and has recently been added to DiscoverEd. This journal aims to provide global Anabaptist and Mennonite dialogue on key issues facing the church in mission.

Anabaptist Witness

Korea Presbyterian Journal of Theology has also recently been added to DiscoverEd. Available in Korean and English, this journal aims to create academic discourse for theology that is evangelical and Biblical, is Reformed and ecumenical, and focuses on the Korean, Asian and global contexts in theological discourse.

KPJTChristine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – Divinity