Unique World Christianity Collections coming home to New College, Edinburgh

Posted on July 24, 2014 by cloverodgers

Now we’re in the in the final stages of the Centre for the Studies of World Christianity Library (CSWC) Project, we’re receiving daily deliveries of books to New College Library from the Library Annexe.Nearly 7,500 items have already been reclassified with Library of Congress classmarks, with roughly 2,500 of these set be housed at classmark BV, Practical Theology & Missions. CSWC books can be identified on the library catalogue as “Andrew Walls Library Collection. From the Library of the Centre for the Study of World Christianity, University of Edinburgh. Presented by Professor Andrew Walls, OBE.” All of these items are unique within the University of Edinburgh Library, and I’ve found a number I’ve looked at to be unique in the UK.

I spent time this week looking through a selection of CSWC books that were published before 1900, and selected over 50 to be held in the Special Collections at New College Library. It’s fascinating to see how many titles are about women missionaries, or written by women, reflecting their engagement in the mission activity of this time. Many of these items have attractive pictorial Victorian publishers bindings, such as these books – A White Woman in Central Africa, Daughters of Syria and In Southern India.

Some items in the collection include signatures, such as the two Chinese-English dictionaries signed “Annie Buchan”, evidence that they were used by this missionary to China whose papers are in the care of the CSWC Archive. A number of volumes are signed by Robert Laws, Free Church of Scotland missionary to Livingstonia, Nyasaland (now Malawi), whose diaries are held in New College Library’s Special Collections at MSS LAW.

Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – Divinity

Hidden faces of New College Library #ILW2014

Posted on February 18, 2014 by cloverodgers

Student cataloguers who worked on the 1893 printed library catalogue. Image from New College Library Archives.

There’s still time to come to the Innovative Learning Week Session : Library Pecha Kucha – Our Favourite Things. Six members of staff will be allowed just 5 minutes to present their work to you. I’ll be presenting on the hidden faces of New College Library, showing that New College Library’s collection story is not just about men and ministers but also women, ordinary people and students.

The session is today, Tuesday 18 February, 11.30-12.20, Main Library – Room 1.11.

The Case of Mr. Ebenezer Erskine, founder of the Secession church in Scotland

Posted on May 31, 2013 by cloverodgers

The Case of Mr Ebenezer Erskine
B.a.b.1912

Ebenezer Erskine (1680–1754), a founder of the Secession church, died in Stirling on 2 June 1754. A celebrated preacher, his opposition to patronage, when a local landowner could choose the parish minister without the approval of the people of the parish, set him against the established Church of Scotland. In 1733 Erskine joined other Scottish ministers to form the Associate Presbytery, remaining in active ministry in Stirling. By 1742 the number of seceder congregations in Scotland had grown to twenty.

New College Library holds this pamphlet from 1733, recently catalogued online as part of the Funk Cataloguing Projects, which is typical of Erskine’s sermons published during the controversial times of the early 1730s. New College Library also holds Erskine’s manuscript notebooks in the archives.

Sources

David C. Lachman, ‘Erskine, Ebenezer (1680–1754)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/8853, accessed 27 May 2013]

J.H. Oldham (1874-1969) : Missionary and Ecumenical Pioneer

Posted on May 16, 2013 by cloverodgers

Faith on the frontier : a life of J.H. Oldham / K.W. Clements. New College Library BX6.8.O54 Cle.

Today, 16 May, is the anniversary of the death of J.H. Oldham.

Joseph Houldsworth Oldham (1874-1969) was a missionary and pioneer of ecumenism. The organising secretary for the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, he also founded the journal International Review of Missions. During the Second World War the meetings of his ‘Moot’ group initiated new thinking about Christian responsibility in modern society.

New College Library holds a substantial collection of J.H. Oldham’s papers, which include correspondence, material relating to the Moot including minutes (1938-1947), lectures, sermons, papers and reports.

You can read more about J.H. Oldham and the Oldham Papers here , or in Faith on the frontier : a life of J.H. Oldham by K.W. Clements, in New College Library at BX6.8.O54 Cle.

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.

To Africa with Love

Posted on September 25, 2012 by cloverodgers

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.

Scotlands oldest documents online

Posted on September 6, 2012 by cloverodgers

Looks like a very interesting project …

New College Library Archives

Posted on August 13, 2012 by cloverodgers

An image from the New College Archive of New College Library as it appeared in 1946

Did you know that New College Library holds significant collections of archives and manuscripts?

These collections include the papers of Thomas Chalmers, J.H. Oldham, James S. Stewart and Norman W. Porteous. Hidden among the older archives are gems such as the last speech and testimony of the covenanter James Renwick (1662-1688). The Archives also include a New College Archive which includes group photographs of students and staff, and of the New College buildings.

Recently added to our collections are the papers of Rev Tom Allan (1916-1965), Rev. Professor Alec Campbell Cheyne (1924-2006), Rev. Professor John McIntyre (1916-2005), and the Very Rev Professor James Whyte (1920-2005). The listing of these papers was funded by a generous bequest from the estate of Rev. Professor Alec Campbell Cheyne .

See the New College Archives web page to find out more.

How an Olympic champion became a missionary

Posted on July 23, 2012 by cloverodgers

The BBC Scotland programme Eric Liddell: A Champion’s Life http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01lb63b on BBC2 tonight (Monday 23rd July) at 10pm features items from University of Edinburgh Collections.

RUNNING THE RACE: Eric Liddell Olympic Champion and Missionary. John W. Keddie.

New College Library recently received a donation of a biography of former Olympic Champion Eric Liddell, by John W. Keddie. Immortalised in the film Chariots of Fire, Liddell won gold in the 400 metres at the Olympic games in Paris 1924, but famously refused to compete in his best event, the 100 metres, because it was held on a Sunday. He went on to study at the Scottish Congregational College and in 1925 went to China as a missionary with the London Missionary Society.

New College Library holds a letter (30 June 1940) from Liddell to Mary and George Cameron, Heriot, Midlothian describing his movements during his last trip with his family. After two years in a wartime internment camp with other members of the China Inland mission, he died on 21 February 1945, five months before liberation.

Liddell’s Olympic medals were donated to Edinburgh University by his daughter Mrs. Patricia Russell. A new Sports Scholarship at Edinburgh University, the Eric Liddell High Performance Sports Scholarship, was launched recently in his memory.

Medieval manuscript on display at New College Library …

Posted on May 24, 2012 by cloverodgers

Now on display at New College Library : the Athanasii Opuscula.

This fifteenth century Italian medieval manuscript has a beautiful painted and gold tooled frontispiece and a neat humanistic script. In the lower margins cupids hold a gold hoop. (Details taken from Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, N.R. Ker, Oxford: Clarendon 1977, p. 532)

New College Library possesses five medieval manuscripts in its manuscripts and archives collection. This item was given to the Library by F. Sargent, probably before 12 Nov 1844.

New College Librarian

News and views from New College Library, Edinburgh

Tag Archives: archives