New books at New College Library – March

Posted on March 4, 2013 by cloverodgers

New College Library has a regular display of new books at the far end of the Library Hall, close to the door to the stacks.

Currently in the display is The good Muslim : reflections on classical Islamic law and theology by Mona Siddiqui. Professor Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at the School of Divinity, will deliver her Inaugural Lecture ‘Love and Law in Christianity and Islam‘ today, Monday 4 March 2013 at St Cecilia’s Hall.

Also new is The lovelorn ghost and the magical monk : practicing Buddhism in modern Thailand by Daniel McJustin. These titles were purchased for Religious Studies at the School of Divinity, Edinburgh University.

You can see an regularly updated list of new books for New College Library on the Library Catalogue – choose the New Books Search and limit your search to New College Library. Here’s a quick link to new books arriving in the last few weeks. A word of caution – some of the books listed here may still be in transit between the Main Library (where they are catalogued) and New College Library, so not on the shelf just yet.

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.

New books at New College Library – February

Posted on February 6, 2013 by cloverodgers

New College Library has a regular display of new books at the far end of the Library Hall, close to the door to the stacks. We have a bumper crop this month so please do stop and have a look if you’re in the library.

A new title already out on loan is After imperialism : Christian identity in China and the global evangelical movement edited by Richard R. Cook and David W. Pao, 2011 (NCL BR1285 Aft. ) This book was purchased for World Christianity, recommended by a PhD student.

Also new is The cross in the dark valley : the Canadian Protestant missionary movement in the Japanese Empire, 1931-1945, by A. Hamish Ion, another recommendation from a Divinity postgraduate student.

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.

Works of King James I & VI now on display at New College Library

Posted on January 10, 2013 by cloverodgers

Serenissimi et potentissimi Principis Iacobi, Dei gratia, Magnae Britanniae, Franciae, et Hiberniae Regis, fidei defensoris, opera …
New College Library DPL.25

New on display in the entrance to New College Library is the Works of King James I of England and VI of Scotland edited by James Montagu, Bishop of Winchester, and Dean of the Royal Chapel.

With an engraved portrait of Prince Charles (later King Charles I), and later the Royal Coat of Arms this contains James’ paraphrase of the apocalyptic books of the Bible, as well as works on royalty and church and state.

The volume has a vellum binding covered in a stamped gilded decoration of scattered flowers around a central image of a wild boar.

Part of the Dumfries Presbytery Library, the volume is inscribed Ex Libris Johannes Hutton. Dr John Hutton, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, became the first Treasurer of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (1681–82), and Court Physician to King William III and Queen Mary (1688–1702).
Later he was also MP for Dumfries Burghs (1710–12) and when he died in London, in November 1712, he gave as a bequest his library of 1,500 volumes to the Presbytery of Dumfries. Much of this is preserved as the Dumfries Presbytery Library, now kept in New College Library.

This item was recently catalogued online as part of the Funk Cataloguing Projects.

New books at New College Library – January

Posted on January 7, 2013 by cloverodgers

New College Library has a regular display of new books at the far end of the Library Hall, close to the door to the stacks.

Currently in the display is Disability studies and biblical literature edited by Candida R. Moss and Jeremy Schipper. This was a recommendation from Biblical Studies at the School of Divinity, Edinburgh University.

Also new is Celluloid sermons : the emergence of the Christian film industry, 1930-1986 by Terry Lindvall, purchased to support courses in film, religion and ethics.

Winter vacation is coming at New College Library

Posted on December 17, 2012 by cloverodgers

New College Library Christmas tree in Funk Reading Room

New College Library will close on Friday 21 December and reopen again on Thursday 3 January. More details on opening hours for all University of Edinburgh Library sites over the holidays are available at : http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/library-opening

Reserve books can be borrowed from 11am 21st December, to be returned by 10.30 on Monday 14th January.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The wood-walls of Scotland : a Christmas Carol

Posted on December 14, 2012 by cloverodgers

The wood-walls of Scotland : a Christmas carol, from the Fife Sentinel, with additions. Edinburgh : W. P. Kennedy … etc., 1844. New College Library F.a.12/13

New College Christmas Carol Service is taking place today at 5pm in the Martin Hall, led by members of the New College community and with singing from the New College Choir. Here’s a Christmas carol from New College Library’s collections.

This pamphlet, The wood-walls of Scotland, was originally published in the newspaper the Fife Sentinel. It contains a carol that would have been sung to a popular hymn tune, inspired by the verse from Psalm 132 “Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah: we found it in the fields of the wood.” Published after the Disruption of 1843, the carol is celebrating the outdoor services held to accommodate congregations who had separated to form the new Free Church of Scotland.

“On hill-side and green valley

Our wooden temples placed

The faithful, round they rally

The Gospel-standard rais’d”

To fast or feast? Celebrating Christmas in the eighteenth century

Posted on December 11, 2012 by cloverodgers

A discourse concerning the lawfulness and right manner of keeping Christmas and other Christian holy-days, by way of question and answer : intended for the use of a charity-school. London: Printed for, and sold by H. Hills, in Black-fryars, near the Water-side, 1708 New College Library Z.851/3

Many folk will be going to Christmas lunches and parties this week – including New College Library staff. Outside our office window the Edinburgh Christmas fair is in full (and noisy) swing, celebrating the season.

This eighteenth century pamphlet, A discourse concerning the lawfulness and right manner of keeping Christmas, gives an eighteenth century view on seasonal celebrations. It takes the form of a dialogue between a master and scholar, prefacing the discussion with the quotation of Bible texts that urge sincere and temperate behaviour. It unpicks the theology of Christmas from an early eighteenth century Anglican point of view, negotiating the scriptural and historical justifications of the observance of Christmas as a holy day and the contemporary differences in practice with other Protestant Churches. The author looks back on the abolishment of Christmas celebrations (including plum pudding) under Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan regime after the English Civil War. It is possible both this period and the Restoration of 1660 may have been within the author’s living memory.

This book is also available online to University of Edinburgh users via Eighteenth Century Collections Online, where it can be read online in full.

This item is from New College Library’s Z Collection, currently being catalogued as part of the Funk Cataloguing Projects at New College Library.

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