I’m pleased to report that the Longforgan Free Church Ministers Library has now been catalogued online. A big thank you to the two project cataloguers who have tackled this collection, Finlay West and Patrick Murray!
Standard documents connected with the Free Church of Scotland … / issued by the authority of the Publication Committee of the General Assembly. Edinburgh : John D. Lowe, 69, George Street, 1847. New College Library LON 864
Today we’re welcoming a group from the EAHIL + ICAHIS + ICLC 2015 Workshop to New College Library. The Workshop is a collaboration between the European Association for Health Information and Libraries (EAHIL), the International Conference of Animal Health Information Specialists (ICAHIS) and the International Clinical Librarian Conference (ICLC). Along with a tour of the library we have brought out some Special Collections items on a medical theme to display.
Avicenna, 980-1037. Liber Avicenna. Venice : 1500. New College Library Inc. 22
This is a detail from Liber Avicenna, a work from the Incunabula Collection. Avicenna was a Persian scholar whose medical texts became standard works at medieval universities.
Piperno, Pietro. De effectibus magicis libri sex … Naples : 1647. New College Library TR.395
Part of the TR Collection currently being catalogued as part of the Funk Projects, De effectibus magicis libri sex is a seventeenth century work on medicine, magic and the occult.
Sibbald, Robert. Scotia illustrata, sive, Prodromus historiae naturalis … Edinburgh : 1684. New College Library DPL 9
Robert Sibbald was an Edinburgh physician and later the first professor of medicine at the University of Edinburgh. This work, Scotia illustrata, is a descriptive regional guide to Scotland’s natural history, with reference to the health of the inhabitants of each region. It once belonged to another doctor, Dr John Hutton, who was court physician at the court of William and Mary. He gifted his library to the Presbytery of Dumfries, from where it came to New College Library where it is now part of the Dumfries Presbytery Library.
Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – Divinity
Christ or Confucius, Which? is just one of the book titles now on display in New College Library, in honour of the conference being held on James Legge and Scottish Missions to China at New College on 11-13 June 2015.
Macgowan, John. Christ or Confucius, Which? Or, the story of the Amoy Mission. London : London Missionary Society, 1889. New College Library sMR 5 McG
Henry, B.C. The Cross and the Dragon ; or, Light in the Broad East. London: S.W. Partridge & Co, 1885. New College Library sMR 5 Hen
The authors of these works were contemporaries of James Legge (1815-1897), who was a missionary and scholar of Chinese. He became Principal of the Anglo-Chinese College in Malacca established in 1818 by the pioneering protestant missionary Robert Morrison (1782–1834). In 1842 he was put in charge of the London Missionary Society’s mission house in Hong Kong where he spent a third of his life. He became an accomplished translator of Chinese Classical texts. Returning home to Scotland in 1873, he then took up the newly endowed chair of Chinese at Oxford University. Many editions of his works are held in the University of Edinburgh Library, with several at New College Library.
Legge, James. The notions of the Chinese concerning God and spirits : with an examination of the defense of an essay, on the proper rendering of the words Elohim and Theos, into the Chinese language, by William J. Boone … / Hongkong : Printed at the “Hongkong Register” office, 1852. New College Library Z.1763
Legge, James. The sacred books of China : the texts of Confucianism / Part 1, The Shû King The religious portions of the Shih King The Hsiâo King.
Oxford : Clarendon, 1899. New College Library C2/a4
Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – Divinity
A guest post from Paul Nicholas, Funk Projects Cataloguer
Missae defunctorum, iuxta usum Ecclesiae Romanae, cum ordine et canone extensae. Tulli Leucorum : Ex officina Ioannis Laurentii, et Ioannis Francisci Laurentii, typographorum Regiorum & Episcopalium, MDCLXXI. New College Library MH.83.
We were delighted this week to discover a rare Mass for the Dead in the MH Collection at New College Library. This folio volume is a Roman Catholic priest’s ‘handbook’ published in 1671 and intended to be used during a ceremonial mass for the dead. The printed text in black would be spoken out loud, the text printed in red forms ceremonial instructions for the priest. The musical notation shows Gregorian chant, scripted in square notation.
At the time of writing, we have not identified another copy of this item in any of the bibliographic databases of the world’s library collections – so we are hoping it may be unique! This item was catalogued as part of the Funk Cataloguing Projects at New College Library.
Paul Nicholas – Funk Projects Cataloguer
With thanks to Elizabeth Lawrence, Assistant Rare Books Librarian