Tag Archives: books

Another Book Sale success at New College Library, Edinburgh

Posted on by
Reply

New College Library held another successful Book Sale of duplicate volumes and unsuitable donations this Freshers week in the David Welsh Reading Room, New College Library. We’re pleased to be able to tell you that we raised over £1200! All proceeds will go to support New College Library funds. Previous book sales have supported new book purchasing, rare book conservation and archive listing projects.

The Book Sale would not be able to happen without the support of helpers from the New College postgraduate student community, who staffed the sale and helped with setting up and clearing away. A big thank you goes out to them!

Students and staff often ask what will happen to the unsold stock. This year some books will be going to the  Josophat Mwale Theological Institute (JMTI), in Zomba, Malawi, courtesy of Dr David Reimer. Other stock is being collected by St Columba’s Hospice Bookshop, Edinburgh.

New books at New College Library – September

Posted on by
Reply

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 also acquire some titles as e-book versions when these are available.

New book of the month for September is the Blackwell Companion to Religion and Violence  (Oxford : Wiley-Blackwell, c2011)

This book has been purchased as an e-book and is available via the Edinburgh University Library Catalogue. Access is restricted to University of Edinburgh users. It was purchased to support the course Religion, Violence and Peacebuilding, a Year 2 undergraduate course at the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh.

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. Please ask at the New College Library Helpdesk if there’s a book that you are interested in and can’t find.

Once in a blue moon? Surprises in the New College Library stacks …

Posted on by
Reply

The Romance of Modern Astronomy by Hector MacPherson. New College Library Stack II C4/a2

The 31st of August is scheduled for a ‘blue moon’ over Scotland. A blue moon traditionally occurs whenever two full moons happen in a single month – an unusual occurence, hence the saying ‘Once in a blue moon’.

Dedicated users of New College Library may have made their way down to the depths of Stack II at basement level, and discovered the sequence of older monographs known as the ‘unclassified sequence’.  These books date from the pre-1930 existence of New College Library, and the variety of the content covers a much wider scope than the theological curriculum of the time. I was surprised to find this one :  The Romance of Modern Astronomy (1911), by Hector MacPherson.

This collection is currently part of an online cataloguing project funded by the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Edinburgh.

Here comes the rain again …

Posted on by
Reply

Prayers written at Vailima, by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1910. New College Library Z.2233.

The rain is pouring down this afternoon in thundery showers.

Here’s a rainy day item from New College Library’s collections. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote this prayer in time of rain as part of a collection of prayers written in Vailima, Samoa where he made his home in the 1890s. It was later published in this 1910 illuminated edition, designed by Alberto Sangorski.

This item is held in New College Library’s Special Collections, in the ‘Z’ Collection.

New books at New College Library – August

Posted on by
Reply

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 Why there almost certainly is a God : doubting Dawkins, by Keith Ward. This book was purchased to support the Atheism in Debate course at the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh.

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 or in the display just yet.

How an Olympic champion became a missionary

Posted on by
2

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.

New College Library Stacks now open

Posted on by
Reply

New College Library’s Stack I is now open.

Apologies to all who have been inconvenienced by the closure of Stack I during the last five weeks. The New College Library Helpdesk had more than 500 books requested during the closure period, so there is obviously no such thing as a” quiet time” in the Library any more.

The stack room is now freshly painted for the first time in sixty years!!

Islamic Collections at New College Library

Posted on by
Reply

Muslims all over the world join together this week for Ramadan, the greatest religious observance in Islam.  Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, when Muslims fast during daylight hours.

New College Library’s collections in Islamic Studies reflect the current teaching and research activities within the School of Divinity’s Religious Studies programmes.  These collections complement the rich collections held at the University of Edinburgh’s Main Library and Islamic Studies Library. Students and staff have access to the online resources for Islamic and Middle-Eastern Studies, including the Encyclopaedia of the Qu’rān.

Recent acquisitions to New College Library’s collections include Women under Islam : gender, justice and the politics of Islamic Law by Christina Jones-Pauly. Another recent addition to the shelves is Jesus and Muhammad : parallel tracks, parallel lives by Francis E. Peters.

New books at New College Library – June

Posted on by
Reply

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 origin of the Roman Catholic Church in Korea : an examination of popular and governmental responses to Catholic missions in the late Chosôn dynasty  by Jai-Keun Choi. This was a recommendation from a postgraduate student.

Also new is Petri Cantoris Parisiensis Verbum adbreviatum, part of the Corpus Christianorum series that the Library subscribes to.

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.