Science and religion : a natural history #ILW2013

Posted on February 14, 2013 by cloverodgers

Innovative Learning week kicks off at New College Library with a chance to see some of the scientific books in New College Library’s Special Collections and find out where they came from and why they were collected at New College Library. Please drop in to look at the book display in the Funk Reading Room, Monday 18 February 11-12am and ask questions.

Several of the items in this display are drawn from New College Library’s Natural History Collection, a Special Collection numbering about 175 books. This dates from the early days of New College, where ‘Natural Science’ was taught until 1934. The collection covers the mid-nineteenth century controversies over evolution and natural selection, with geology particularly well represented. There is a focus on Scottish natural history and on texts by Scots writers.

Can’t come to the display? See the presentation slides on slideshare.

UK Press Online now on trial

Posted on January 31, 2013 by cloverodgers

UK Press Online is now available on trial to University of Edinburgh users, accessible on campus or off campus via VPN via the eresources trials webpage. The trial ends on 24 February.

The trial includes newspaper archives to the Daily Mirror (1903-1980); Daily Express (1900- current); Daily Express (1900- current); Daily Star Sunday (1863-1889); the Watchman (1835-1884); Daily Worker (1930-1945); World War Two (1933-1945), which comprises wartime editions of the Church Times, Daily Mirror, Daily Express, Fascist Week, Action!, Blackshirt, Yorkshire Post and Daily Worker. This resource includes over 2 million pages of the 19^th-20^th Century newspaper, from 1835 to today.

Walking with Angels? Exploring Death in Modern Scotland

Posted on January 31, 2013 by cloverodgers

Song School St Mary, 1897, f.13r
by Phoebe Anna Traquair, (b.1852, d.1936) . Edinburgh University Library

There are still places available at the forthcoming conference on Death in Modern Scotland , 1855: beliefs, attitudes and practices at the School of Divinity, New College Edinburgh, on 1-3 February 2013. Among the speakers is Dr Elizabeth Cumming (Honorary Fellow, University of Edinburgh; Honorary Senior Research Fellow, University of Glasgow) on ‘Phoebe Anna Traquair, angels and changing concepts of the supernatural in fin-de-siècle Scotland’. This image of one of Phoebe Anna Traquair’s works is taken from a volume in Edinburgh University Library’s Special Collections, with further images available online.

The Rescue that never was – remembering Holocaust Memorial Day #HMD2013

Posted on January 28, 2013 by cloverodgers

Nazi massacres of the Jews & others : some practical proposals for immediate rescue made by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Rochester in speeches on March 23rd 1943 in the House of Lords /William Temple. London : Victor Gollancz, [1943] Z.h.30/24

Holocaust Memorial Day marks the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945, and remembers those who died in the Holocaust and under Nazi persecution, and during subsequent genocides, such as Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur.

New College Library holds this pamphlet, Nazi massacres of the Jews & others : some practical proposals for immediate rescue made by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Rochester in speeches on March 23rd 1943 in the House of Lords. The author, William Temple (1881-1944) was a bishop in the Church of England who served as Archbishop of York Archbishop of Canterbury between 1942–44.

One of the founders of the Council of Christians and Jews in 1942, Temple was at the forefront of the Church of England’s campaign to draw attention to the plight of the Jews in Europe and to demand that the British Government provide rescue and sanctuary for Jewish victims. His speech urges:

“The Jews are being slaughtered at the rate of tens of thousands a day on many days … we cannot rest as long as there is any sense among us that we are not doing all that might be done.”

Sadly no changes to refugee policy were made by the British Government and after William Temple died in 1944, the impetus for rescuing the Jews did not continue.

This item is part of the Pamphlets Collection, and it was catalogued as part of the Funk Cataloguing Projects at New College Library

The Hammond Organ in history

Posted on January 11, 2013 by cloverodgers

Today, 11 January, is the anniversary of the birth of Laurens Hammond, inventor of the Hammond organ. New College Library holds this pamphlet, The Hammond Organ, published in the 1930s, in the Hymnology collections.

Patented eighty years ago in 1933-4, the Hammond Organ was aimed at church and domestic use, and it offered a new and cheaper alternative to the traditional pipe organ for church music. Later, it became popular for jazz, blues and rock music, as well as for church and gospel music.

Laurens Hammond was awarded the Franklin Institute’s John Price Wetherill Medal in 1940 for the invention of the Hammond electric organ.

This item was recently catalogued as part of the Funk Cataloguing Projects at New College Library.

New on display – The Nativity in twentieth century art

Posted on December 6, 2012 by cloverodgers

The Bible in 20th century art / introduced by Nicholas Usherwood. New College Library sfYF 67 BIB

New on display in New College Library’s Funk Special Collections Reading Room, is The Bible in 20th Century art. It is opened to show a painting of The Nativity by Bernard Buffet (1961), the original of which is held in the collection of the Vatican Museum.

Keeping the faith in wartime

Posted on November 9, 2012 by cloverodgers

A short New College Act of Remembrance will take place on Friday 9th November at 1pm at the War Memorial in the corridor leading to the Assembly Hall.

Church of Scotland – Committee on Aids to Devotion. Special Services issued during the Great War 1914-1919. New College Library Pamphlets Collection X.X.h.1.1-14

This item from New College Library’s Pamphlets Collections was recently catalogued as part of the Funk Cataloguing Projects. It is a collection of Church orders of services and guides for public prayer in a family or school setting. All the pamphlets date from the First World War Period, ending with a form of Divine service for Remembrance Day on the eleventh of November.The pamphlets and their binding are flimsy and utilitarian but their content bears witness to the cost of war for those at home as well as those out on the front.

Pamphlet X.X.h. 1/2 Form of prayer for schools in time of war, includes the text:

“Throw the shield of Thy protection over all who have gone forth to fight our battles by land or sea or air. We especially remember those near and dear to ourselves.”

Early twentieth-century Christianity in Korea

Posted on October 9, 2012 by cloverodgers

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”.

Happy Birthday New College Library

Posted on October 8, 2012 by cloverodgers

Seventy six years ago on the 8th of October, New College Library, Edinburgh, was formally opened to students and staff in its current building, the former Free High Kirk. The earth under the church floor had been excavated to allow the three stackrooms below the Library Hall.

The New College Archive preserves this original admission ticket to the inauguration ceremony, as it also preserves the suggestions books, committee minutes and account books of the business of New College Library since its foundation back in the 1840s. The ticket bears the arms of Edinburgh University on the left and the Church of Scotland’s burning bush emblem on the right. This represents the union which had been effected in January 1935 of the Church of Scotland’s New College with the University’s Faculty of Divinity in the New College building.

Christianity in the Far East?

Posted on October 2, 2012 by cloverodgers

The Centre for the Study of World Christianity at the School of Divinity hosts its Research Seminar today, and the speaker is Andrew Kaiser, on:

” Lessons for Today from China’s Past: Timothy Richard’s Innovations in Mission.”

New College Library’s stacks bear witness to the activity of nineteenth and twentieth century missons in China and East Asia. I picked up these three volumes which all have attractive publishers bindings.

The Cross and the Dragon, or, Light in the Broad East by Rev B.C. Henry (London, Partridge & Co, 1885) announces the author as “Ten years a missionary in Canton”. It is beautifully illustrated and has endpapers printed in a pattern of Chinese fans. The introduction proclaims “There is no new and sacred sight open to the eyes of present generations better worth study than the rising of the unobscured orb of Christianity in the Far East …”

East of the Barrier, or, Side lights on the Manchuria Mission (Oliphant, Andrewson and Ferrier, Edinburgh & London , 1902), was written by J. Miller Graham, a missionary of the United Free Church of Scotland, Moukden, Manchuria.

Two Lady Missionaries in Tibet by Isabel S. Robson ( London: S.W. Partridge & Co 1910) is the story of two intrepid women missionaries – Miss Annie R Taylor and Dr Susie Carson Moyes.

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Tag Archives: twentieth-century