{"id":2083,"date":"2015-02-10T12:18:33","date_gmt":"2015-02-10T12:18:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/newcollegelibrarian\/?p=2083"},"modified":"2015-02-10T12:19:53","modified_gmt":"2015-02-10T12:19:53","slug":"tackling-a-library-time-capsule-the-longforgan-free-church-ministers-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/newcollegelibrarian\/2015\/02\/10\/tackling-a-library-time-capsule-the-longforgan-free-church-ministers-library\/","title":{"rendered":"Tackling a Library time capsule : The Longforgan Free Church Ministers Library"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Longforgan<\/a>Regular visitors to New College Library have probably walked past the Longforgan Free Church Ministers Library many times. It sits in custom made glazed bookcases, which are sited on the landing of the entrance to the Library Hall and in the David Welsh Reading Room. The cataloguing of this collection is in progress as part of the Funk Projects, and we’ve recently been pleased to welcome Patrick Murray as our cataloguer,\u00a0replacing Finlay West who has moved on to new projects.<\/p>\n

The Longforgan Library is an attractive part of the New College Library environment, but it’s probably true to say that for many years it has been just that – the books themselves have rarely been consulted. This may have been\u00a0so from\u00a0the very beginning – we’ve\u00a0noticed that books being catalogued recently are in mint condition, some with pages uncut, as though they have never been read.\u00a0 This may fit with the Longforgan Library’s provenance as a gift to the Free Church at Longforgan, Dundee by Mr David Watson, owner of Bullionfield Paperworks at Invergowrie. Part of the\u00a0Longforgan Library\u00a0could have begun life as a showpiece collection for David Watson to illustrate his skills in printing and binding to clients.<\/p>\n

\"Longforgan2\"<\/a>All this is changing with the benefits of online cataloguing. The Longforgan Library contains many volumes of the Acts\u00a0of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland from the seventeenth century onwards and the reports of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland in the nineteenth century. For the first time these\u00a0are being requested by readers, with telltale paper slips the evidence that the volumes are in use.<\/p>\n

More than that, online cataloguing has revealed the richness of this collection of patristic and theological books, the earliest text printed in 1618. The works of Eusebius of Caesarea and\u00a0Irenaeus of Lyon sit alongside those of Jean Calvin and John Foxe in\u00a0 a microcosm\u00a0of New College Library’s historic collections as a whole. And it’s held surprises for us – one of them being that we discovered additional books hidden in concealed compartments in the back of the bookcases.<\/p>\n

\"Castori<\/a>

Castori romanorum cosmographi : tabula quae dicitur Peutingeriana \/ recognovit Conrad Miller. Ravensburg : Otto Maier, 1888
New College Library LON. 416<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

This included this fantastic facsimile of the Tabula Peutingeriana or Peutinger’s Tabula. Based on an early fourth or fifth century original, the map covers the area roughly from southeast England to present day Sri Lanka and shows the Roman road network. When we unfolded the map it stretched the length of the office!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"map2\"<\/p>\n

The Longforgan Free Church Ministers Library still has treasures to discover.\u00a0There are cupboards yet to unlock which have books stacked back to back in them, plus there\u00a0is a further sequence of Longforgan books\u00a0in a more secure location which includes three early editions of the\u00a0Babylonian Talmud. Watch this space.<\/p>\n

Christine Love-Rodgers – Academic Support Librarian, Divinity<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regular visitors to New College Library have probably walked past the Longforgan Free Church Ministers Library many times. It sits in custom made glazed bookcases, which are sited on the landing of the entrance to the Library Hall and in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[199,4],"tags":[57,67,75,78,210,131,135,154,211,167],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42UaT-xB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/newcollegelibrarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/newcollegelibrarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/newcollegelibrarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/newcollegelibrarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/newcollegelibrarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2083"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/newcollegelibrarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2094,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/newcollegelibrarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083\/revisions\/2094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/newcollegelibrarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/newcollegelibrarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/newcollegelibrarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}