Tag Archives: research

Library of Latin Texts on trial now

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LLTLibrary of Latin Texts (LLT)  is now available on trial access to University of Edinburgh Users. Access is available on campus and off campus via the VPN. The trial ends on 15 February. See the eresources trials web page for more information.

LLT contains texts from the beginning of Latin literature (Livius Andronicus, 240 BC) through to the texts of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).The complete works of writers such as  Augustine, Jerome, Gregory the Great, Anselm of Canterbury, Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Kempis can be consulted. The texts have been taken from the Corpus Christianorum series and from other leading editions.

Religion Past and Present on trial now

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RPPReligion Past and Present is now available on trial access to University of Edinburgh Users. Access is available on campus and off campus via the VPN. The trial ends on 14 February. See the eresources trials web page for more information.

Religion Past and Present (RPP) Online is the online version of the updated English translation of the 4th edition of Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG) which aims to be the definitive encyclopedia of subjects connected with religion.

World Religion Database on trial now

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WRD bannerWorld Religion Database is now available on trial access to University of Edinburgh Users. Access is available on campus and off campus via the VPN. The trial ends on 14 February. See the eresources trials web page for more information.

The World Religion Database (WRD) contains detailed statistics on religious affiliation for every country of the world. It provides source material, including censuses and surveys, as well as best estimates for every religion to offer a definitive picture of international religious demography. It offers best estimates at multiple dates for each of the world’s religions for the period 1900 to 2050.

World Christian Database on trial now

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wcd_headerWorld Christian Database is now available on trial access to University of Edinburgh Users. Access is available on campus and off campus via the VPN. The trial ends on 14 February. See the eresources trials web page for more information.

The World Christian Database provides comprehensive statistical information on world religions, Christian denominations, and people groups. Extensive data are available on 9,000 Christian denominations, 13,000 ethnolinguistic peoples, as well as data on 5,000 cities, 3,000 provinces and 239 countries.

Oxford Handbooks Online on trial now

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oxford-handbooks-online-banner Oxford Handbooks Online is now available on trial access to University of Edinburgh Users. Access is available on campus and off campus via the VPN. The trial ends on 14 February. See the eresources trials web page for more information.

Oxford Handbooks Online aims to provide scholarly research reviews from the world’s most trusted scholars. The ‘Religion’ category contains 978 entries and the ‘Philosophy’ category 1,181, and articles can be downloaded as pdf files.

Tips for getting copyright right

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copyrightI’ve had some questions about copyright recently so thought I’d share a few tips …

1. All reproduction from published material is subject to copyright law. The UK Copyright Service provides a really helpful factsheet.

2. 70 is the magic number – In UK copyright law, copyright for literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works lasts 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the last remaining author of the work dies.   For instance, as Aldous Huxley died in 1963, his works will not be out of copyright until 2033.

3. While downloadable versions of publications can be found freely available on the internet,  always check the source and its terms and conditions. Some websites hosted outside of the UK provide materials that potentially violate UK law. Unfortunately if it looks too good to be true – it probably is.

4. The University of Edinburgh has signed up to a licensing scheme which allows photocopying from publications for individual research and study.  This means copies can be made of up to a chapter, entire article or 5% of the publication, whichever is the greater.

5. The University of Edinburgh ereserve service has a licence to allow the scanning of book chapters and journal articles to be made available to classes for teaching purposes. It is the only legal route for scanning published materials to make them available to groups at the University.

6. More information can be found at  the University of Edinburgh’s Copyright Service, including a contact e-mail address for enquiries.

Manchester Contributes to the Friedberg Genizah Project

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A growing resource for Jewish / Ancient World Studies – I see that as well as the digitized images of Genizah collections at Cambridge and Birmingham there are links to related open access journals and pdfs of all the 8 volumes of “Ginzei Kedem” – a Journal devoted to Genizah research and published by the Ben-Zvi Institute.

Top ten tips for finding theses

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Postgraduate students often ask me about how to find theses. Unfortunately there’s no single source for information on all theses worldwide.

However here are a few tips that might help …
1. All Divinity theses and post 1984 other University of Edinburgh theses are now catalogued onto the online catalogue. See my earlier blog post for tips on searching for New College theses …

2. Older University of Edinburgh theses are listed in sheaf-binder indexes, which are held in the CRC Research Suite – see the useful CRC Guide to Theses

3. Remember that most University of Edinburgh printed theses are kept as archival copies and can only be read in the Library.

4. The Edinburgh Research Archive (ERA) has full text online versions of all Edinburgh University theses submitted from 2005.

5. Go to the Theses subject guide on the University of Edinburgh Library website to find a gateway to information sources from universities worldwide  – such as …

6. [University of Edinburgh restricted] … The Index to Theses database finds details of UK & Ireland theses from 1715- present (no full text)

7. [University of Edinburgh restricted] The Dissertations and Theses database from ProQuest finds details of primarily US & Canada theses. Currently the University of Edinburgh has not subscribed to the full text option, but if you want the full text you could apply for an inter-library loan.

8. New to me is the Networked Library of Theses and Digital Dissertations – SCIRUS Search. This freely available search of public domain theses will include subscribed content from University of Edinburgh subscriptions if you’re on a University network machine, or going through MyEd or VPN at home (No need to alter settings as you would for Google scholar). There’s more full text here than I’d expected.

9. The DART Europe E-Theses portal  – at the time of writing, this is offering access to 362030 open access research theses from 523 Universities in 27 European countries.

10. For theses from further afield, you could try the Center for Research Libraries Global Resources Network.

Early twentieth-century Christianity in Korea

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With Tommy Tompkins in Korea by Lillian H. Underwood, (Edinburgh 1905). New College Library sMS1 UND
Korean Sketches by Rev. James S. Gale, of the American Presbyterian Mission, Wunsan, Korea. sMS 1 GAL

The School of Divinity’s World Christianity seminar series  continues with  “No Neutrality for Brutality”: The Missionary Position on Indigenous Resistance Movements in Colonial Korea, 1910-1919 by Han Kang-Hee.

These two books from New College Library’s stacks give us contemporary views of Korea by missionaries, and describe their engagement  – or otherwise – with Korean culture.

With Tommy Tompkins in Korea by Lillian H. Underwood is an attempt to describe the everyday life of a Western boy living in Korea “… Hoping that this book may serve to show the contrast, between the family of a happy little western boy, and the poor children born in the dark, so that the hearts of the readers may ask, “How can this be changed?”

Korean Sketches by Rev. James S. Gale, aims to give an idea of the Korean life and character, and is well illustrated with photographs and drawings. The original publishers’s flyer still in the book describes it as “A Missionary’s Observations in the Hermit Nation”.

To Africa with Love

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Reports of the Glasgow African Missionary Society
New College Library Special Collections Z Collection Z.858/9-16

Today’s Centre for the Study of World Christianity Research Seminar is presented by Dr Jack Thompson, ‘African mission photography: Light on Darkness’.

This item, Reports of the Glasgow Missionary Society, from New College Library’s Z Collections, is a printed record of missionary activity, evidence of the hundreds of Missionary Scots at work across Africa.  I was charmed to find that among them was a Dr John Love (perhaps an ancestor of mine?) one time secretary of the Glasgow Missionary Society. The Church of Scotland’s first important missionary station in Africa, at Kaffaria (established in 1830), was named Lovedale after him.  New College Library also holds in its archives a volume of illustrations of Church of Scotland missions in South Africa (Gen. 827F), which features Lovedale. Further details can be searched online at www.mundus.ac.uk.