Get Connected with University of Edinburgh Information Services

Get Connected drop in sessions for Freshers Week are running in the Main Library  on 12th-14th September between 10am-4pm. No appointments necessary, just turn up.

Take the opportunity to connect up your own personal devices e.g. laptops, phones and tablets/pads to the University network. Staff will be on hand to help and guide you.

Sessions will take place on the Mezzanine area of the first floor of the Main Library, George Square (above the entrance gates).

There is a quick reply mailbox at get.connected@ed.ac.uk to support this event.  Send a blank email to this address and you’ll get an automatic reply which contains details of the event and links to our help pages on these topics.

You can also find out more at : www.ed.ac.uk/is/new-students

New books at New College Library – September

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.

New JSTOR collections benefit e-journals for Divinity

Are you a fan of JSTOR electronic  journals ? In 2012 the University of Edinburgh purchased the JSTOR Collections V & VIII. This has increased the coverage of backruns of a number of titles relevant to Divinity, such as:

  • Canadian Journal of Philosophy 1971-2006
  • Contemporary Religions in Japan 1960-1970
  • The Catholic Historical Review 1915-2006
  • International Journal of the Classical Tradition 1994-2007
  • International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1970-2007
  • International Journal of Hindu Studies 1997-2007
  • Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 1974-2011
  • Jewish History 1986-2007
  • The Journal of Ethics 1997-2007
  • Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 1985-2011
  • Journal of Religion and Health 1961-2007
  • The Journal of Religious Ethics 1973-2005
  • The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society  1835-2006
  • Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 1997-2011
  • Prooftexts 1981-2010
  • Religion & Literature 1965-2008
  • Religious Studies 1965-2011
  • Scottish Historical Review 1903-

New College Library Archives

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.

Global Missions and Theology Collection online at University of Edinburgh

In the week of the Yale-Edinburgh Group on the History of the Missionary Movement and World Christianity Conference, a reminder that the Global Missions and Theology Online Collection is now available to University of Edinburgh users.  Part of the Archives Unbound collection from Gale, this collection documents a broad range of nineteenth century missionary activities, practices and thought by reproducing personal narratives, organizational records, and biographies.

Find the link on the Databases for Divinity page on the library website.

New College Library welcomes the Yale-Edinburgh Conference

The Centre for the Study of World Christianity at the University of Edinburgh is hosting the Yale-Edinburgh Group Conference on the History of the Missionary Movement and World Christianity this week, with the theme of  Religious Movements of Renewal, Revival, and Revitalization in the History of Missions and World Christianity.

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)
The distinguishing marks of a work of the spirit of God : applied to that uncommon operation that has lately appear’d on the minds of many of the people in New-England ; with a particular consideration of the extraordinary circumstances with which this work is attended. Edinburgh : 1742
New College Library B.b.c.17/1

We have set out a small display of pamphlets from New College Library’s Special Collections on the theme of revival in the display case in the Funk Reading Room. The display includes this pamphlet on the  revival & awakening of the Holy Spirit in New England, United States.  The author, Jonathan Edwards, was a prominent American preacher and theologian, who was closely involved in the spiritual revival of the 1730s, the Great Awakening. His pamphlet deals with the revival’s controversial  phenomena : the swoonings, outcries and convulsions of believers overwhelmed by their powerful spiritual experiences.

This pamphlet was catalogued recently as part of the Pamphlets Cataloguing Project, funded by the Funk Donation. A similar item is also held by Yale University. University of Edinburgh users can read it online via Eighteenth-Century Collections Online.

Acta Sanctorum now available online to University of Edinburgh

The online Acta Sanctorum, published by ProQuest Databases, is now available to University of Edinburgh users. It is an electronic version of the complete printed text of Acta Sanctorum,which examines the lives of saints, organised according to each saint’s feast day, and runs from the two January volumes published in 1643 to the Propylaeum to December published in 1940. The original printed volumes are held in New College Library’s Special Collections.

University of Edinburgh registered users can access the database via the link on the Library’s A-Z Databases page.

Treasures of New College Library : the Acta Sanctorum

Down in the depths of New College Library’s Stack III, one of the first rows of shelves that faces you when you enter contains the Acta Sanctorum. This huge Latin work in sixty-eight volumes examines the lives of saints, organised according to each saint’s feast day in the calendar year.  Fifty-three of the volumes were published between 1643 and 1794 by the Bollandist Fathers in Antwerp. Hugh Watt, in his New College Library : A Centenary History (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1946), relates a story that Cardinal Hume had intended to purchase this set of the Acta Sanctorum for himself as a birthday present, but arrived at the bookseller’s only to find that Dr William Cunningham, second Principal of New College, had beaten him to it and purchased the volumes for New College Library.

University of Edinburgh users have trial access to the online Acta Sanctorum Database until 24 May 2012.  The Acta Sanctorum Database contains the entire Acta Sanctorum, including all prefatory material, original texts, critical apparatus and indices. Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina reference numbers, essential references for scholars, are also included.