Digital video resources for Divinity

I’ve been following up from student feedback questions  following library induction sessions last week, and one really interesting one has been about library access to digital video recordings.

The Library has recently purchased access to the large and comprehensive online streaming video resource Academic Video Online from Alexander Street Press. Containing over 50,000 recordings overall, it currently lists 324 videos on ‘Religion & Thought’ – and that’s just the start.

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Academic Video Online allows you to create and share playlists and create clips, permalinks are also available to embed or link to from other sites. Transcripts are available for many videos and these can be searched. Continue reading

New Digital Collections for Divinity in 2016

We’ve been able to purchase several new digital collections to support the School of Divinity in 2016. All of the below are accessible via http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/databases-a-z and via the Divinity subject guide http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/subject-guides-divinity

Brepols Database of Latin Dictionaries

Data­base comprising a large number of Latin dictionaries to assist translation from Latin into modern languages and to provide semantic and etymological explanations.

China, Culture & SocietyChina, Culture & Society

Digital collection of rare pamphlets (c. 1750-1929) from Cornell University Library creating a very rich source for research on China, addressing Chinese history, religion, culture, and everyday life. Continue reading

New Bloomsbury eBook Collections available for Divinity

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New Bloomsbury eBook Collections are now available for Divinity.

Bloomsbury eBook Collections deliver instant access to Bloomsbury’s research publications with unlimited user access and the facility to download and print chapter PDFs without DRM (Digital rights management) restriction.

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University of Edinburgh has access to those collections that have an open lock icon next to them.

BloomICCFor Biblical Studies, the International Critical Commentary collection (1901-2014) has been purchased, plus 118 other Biblical Studies titles published in 2013 and 2014.

BloomChristologyTo support Theology & Ethics, we have purchased the Christology Archive (1982-2011) of 66 theological monographs grouped around the theme of Christology. The collection includes works by Thomas F. Torrance, monographs on the theology of Karl Barth, and key introductory texts such as Alan J. Spence’s Christology: A Guide for the Perplexed. We’ve also bought the Christian Doctrines Archive (1988-2013) of 54 titles on the Trinity, ecclesiology and systematic theology.

BloomNRMTo broaden our collections in Religious Studies, we’ve purchased the Religious Studies Archive Collection plus the 2013, 2014 and 2015 frontlist collections – over 170 titles in all. The titles cover world religions including Jainism, Hinduism, Daoism, Sufism and contemporary paganism, and comprehensive overviews such as The Bloomsbury Companion to New Religious Movements.

Access is only available if you are working on-campus or are working off-campus using the VPN (Virtual Private Network).

You can access the Bloomsbury eBook Collections via the E-book Collections A-Z list or the Databases A-Z list on the Library website. The individual book titles will be added to DiscoverEd in due course.

Christine Love-Rodgers – Academic Support Librarian – Divinity

Continue reading

New digital resources for Puritan thought

Herbert, John Rogers. Assertion of Liberty of Conscience by the Independents of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (c) Palace of Westminster; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Herbert, John Rogers. Assertion of Liberty of Conscience by the Independents of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (c) Palace of Westminster; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

I’m pleased to report that we now have access to digital collections from Oxford Scholarly Editions, including the seventeenth-century prose collection. This contains several titles of interest to researchers in Puritan history and thought, including the Minutes and Papers of the Westminster Assembly 1643–1652 and the Calendar of the Correspondence of Richard Baxter, Vol. 1 & 2.  Scholarly editions of the works of John Bunyan –  Pilgrim’s Progress, Grace Abounding and the Holy War as well as thirteen volumes of smaller works by this Puritan writer are also now available. All titles can be access via the online library catalogue.

Christine Love-Rodgers – Academic Support Librarian, Divinity

New digital access to Divinity theses collection

New College Theses

I’m delighted to announced that nearly two hundred and fifty theses dating from 1921-1950 from the New College Library collection are now available online in the Edinburgh Research Archive, part of the Divinity Dissertation and Thesis Collection. While later theses are held in 2 copies, one at the Main Library, we believe that New College Library holds the only copy of theses from this early period.  The New College Theses collection was catalogued online in 2012 as part of the Funk Projects.

The digitisation project was managed by Gavin Willshaw, Digital Curator in Library & University Collections, who explains : “We worked with the digitisation company Restore to digitise 250 unique theses from New College – these are now available open-access for anyone to download at: https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/133
The theses are fully searchable on the ERA platform but also discoverable via Google, making New College scholarship accessible to a much wider audience.
The collection includes a wide variety of research topics, such as Comparison of Chinese and Hebrew wisdom, as exemplified in the Book of Proverbs … [1933] by Elizabeth G.K. Hewat, or The Christian Inscriptions of North Africa … [1943] by Ian Thomson Gillan. Do you recognise any of the authors? We’d love to know more about what happened next to these Divinity alumni.
  • Gavin Willshaw, Digital Curator
  • Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – Divinity

Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology now on trial

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New on trial for University of Edinburgh users from 3 March to 31 March is the  Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology.

The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology is the replacement for the Dictionary of Hymnology produced by John Julian in 1892, with a supplement in 1907.

It is an essential reference resource for scholars of global hymnody, with information on the hymns of many countries and languages, and a strong emphasis on the historical as well as the contemporary. It includes articles on individual hymns, authors from many countries, hymnals, organisations, and themes, as well as information on hymn tunes and their composers. Covering a multitude of hymn traditions from around the world, it is ecumenical and international.

You can access the trial via the link at : http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/databases-trials. Please give us your feedback as this is a key part of making a case to subscribe to resources like this.

Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – School of Divinity

Unique New College theses going digital

New College ThesesOver two hundred theses from the New College Library collection will soon be available online. We’ve been successful in a small project bid to digitise 200 theses dating 1921-1950.  While later theses are held in 2 copies, one at the Main Library, we believe that New College Library holds the only copy of theses from this early period. Digitised theses will be uploaded to ERA, and the project is scheduled to be complete by January 2015. The New College Theses collection was catalogued online in 2012 as part of the Funk Projects. Please note that from now until January 2015, these theses will be unavailable to users whilst they are being scanned.

Christine Love-Rodgers – Academic Support Librarian, Divinity

Index Religiosus Online now on trial

Index ReligiosusNew on trial for University of Edinburgh users from 10 April to 11 May 2013 is the Index Religiosus Online.

The Index Religiosus replaces the bibliography of the Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique and of the ‘Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses’ (Elenchus Bibliographicus). These two tools are internationally recognized as essential working instruments for Theology and Religious Studies.

As a key reference bibliography for Theology, Religious Studies and Church History, it includes publications written in multiple European languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch), and enables users to export records in several formats (EndNote, Refworks, Zotero, etc.)

From January 2014 onwards, the printed version of the bibliography of the Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique and the Elenchus Bibliographicus will no longer be available.

You can access the trial via the link at : http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/databases-trials. Please give us your feedback as this is a key part of making a case to subscribe to resources like this.

Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – School of Divinity

 

Twentieth Century Religious Thought now on trial

TTwentieth Century Religious Thoughtwentieth Century Religious Thought, published by Alexander St Press, is now on trial until 19 December. University of Edinburgh users can access the database at http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/databases-trials.Twentieth Century Religious Thought is a multivolume, cross-searchable online collection that brings together the seminal works and archival materials related to key worldwide religious thinkers, from the early 1900s until the turn of the 21st century. It is a companion database to the Digital Karl Barth Library, to which the University already subscribes.

Volume I: Christianity includes the complete 17-volume German edition of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Werke (DBW) and 15 volumes of the English edition of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works Series (DBWE) (final volumes will be added in 2014); an international selection of English-language editions of key authors such as Hans Urs von Baltasar, Rudolf Bultmann, James Cone, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Adolf von Harnack, Henri de Lubac, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Dorothee Sölle, and Ernst Troeltsch; and a selection of the papers of Reinhold Niebuhr.