Luther Seminary Library

Chew on This.

 

    Perhaps, as the holidays approach, you've had visions of sugar plums dancing across the digital landscape of your final paper of the semester.  Maybe you've been thinking about how you'll spend your time after this semester comes to a close.  But for those of you who say, "no, I'm a hard-core seminarian, and all I want for Christmas dinner is a book of heavy-duty exegesis," I've got a great title by Peter-Ben Smit, Fellowship and Food in the Kingdom, that just came across the acquisitions desk that may help you to more fully set scenes of festive bliss into the context of the outlined biblical textual trajectory "reaching from the paradise iconography and garden imagery associated with the (Jerusalem) Temple" in the spirit of "yearning for utopian satiation" and continuing on into the dining room of your friends or family (quotations from pg. 382).  Unfortunately, since it just came in, you may have to wait until next semester for it to be ready for borrowing.   (Image source).

--Will Keillor, Acquisitions

    Some other new books to check out when you return:

	The Word Leaps the Gap: Essays on Scripture and Theology in honor of Richard B. Hays Ed. by Wagner, Rowe, and Grieb
	Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ By Thomas F. Torrence, ed. by R. T. Walker
	Global Dictionary of Theology Ed. by Dyrness and Karkkainen

On Getting the Word Out

One of my favorite themes emerging from the Christmas story is the way the word (or, more accurately, The Word - of the Incarnation) got out to a world that was mostly looking the other way. The angels, the shepherds, the Wise Men and others – all had a part. (Illustration: The Song of the Angels by William Bouguereau, 1881).

In a series of lectures (Christ and the Media) given back in the 1970s, Malcolm Muggeridge did a couple of thought experiments on getting the Word out then and now. In a lecture called "The Fourth Temptation" he wondered whether the the truth of the Gospel compatible with mass media (which Muggeridge considered a medium given over completely to fantasy); in another ("The Dead Sea Videotapes")
he theorized over what future generations would infer about modern culture if its only surviving artifacts were tapes of TV programs.

Interesting questions, which have only become more intriguing and complex with the rise of networks since Muggeridge thought all of this over. We have more options than ever for communication and discourse, on whatever subjects seem most important to us. Which of these are best suited to getting the Word out?

I highly recommend this discussion at Dan Cohen's Digital Humanities Blog on the relative strengths and shortcomings of, for example, the various web-based venues. One snippet:

" … it should be rather obvious at this point that thoughtful, well-written blogs can rival other forms of publication. For instance, a baseball statistician and political junkie armed with little more than a free Blogger account and considerable intelligence and energy was able this year to rival the election analysis of most professional newspaper reporters."

We know what we know about the Incarnation only because the first witnesses made the best use of the means of communication available to them – whether the heavenly choirs, word of mouth, or the written word. The challenge of "getting the word out" now is identical and more varied at the same time:"Unto us a Son is given".

David Stewart

Need a Sermon Idea or Two?

Are you up to your ears in last minute papers? Prepping for a final? Library Hours are extended December 7-11 and 14-17 until 11PM. 

Are you heading home to preach at Christmas, or after Christmas? If you need a little guidance or inspiration, check out the WorkingPreacher website. It’s loaded with ideas. A post by Karoline Lewis looks at Preaching within the Season: Advent & Christmas.

We've got a few books for you in the library. To see what others have written about preaching during the season try a SUBJECT Search in MARTIN (library catalog): Christmas sermons.  or  Epiphany --Sermons. or  Advent sermons.

Or… Christmas--Prayers. or  Christmas stories. or   Bible --Homiletical use. or  Preaching.

You can't go wrong if you browse in the stacks. Are you thinking about your technique, delivery? Look for books on Preaching   BV4211

 

Examples of Christmas sermons can be found  around  BV4254.5. Also check out our Advent Display.

Blessings to you! We hope you ace that final, write an excellent paper and have as much time as you need to pull that sermon together. If you need a little help be sure to ask any of the library staff.

—Jennie Bartholomew, Electronic Services

Please, Sir, I Want Some More

    When poor Oliver Twist, with courage fueled by near starvation, put this request to the master of the juvenile workhouse, all he received for his audacity was a knock with a soup ladle. Fortunately, in the matter, not of gruel, but of online resources, such is not the case here at Luther Seminary Library. You have asked for more digital reference resources, and more is what you shall get (and have been getting)

    First off, these newly published resources already have been added to the Gale Virtual Reference Library, our collection of top flight online dictionaries and encyclopedias:

• Encyclopedia of Children, Adolescents, and the Media
• Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender
• International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences

    Most recently, we have bolstered our collection of Oxford University Press reference titles. Added last month were the following historically focused resources:

• Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment
• Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages
• Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium
• Oxford Dictionary of the Renaissance

    Planned to add during spring 2009 is Oxford Biblical Studies Online, a collection of study Bibles, commentaries, maps, timelines, and completed articles from the forthcoming Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible.

    All these resources are (or will soon be) at your disposal. Try them out. There's no reason to go hungry.

Bruce Eldevik, Reference Librarian

Can a book have a life?

And can it mirror the life of its subject?

Book Art, Click to Read More

There is a whole genre of writing about books--that is, books about books.  In fact, we receive catalogs from Oak Knoll Press, which specializes in these types of books.  Usually these books are about a rare and valuable book, the library of someone important, or, sometimes, about the culture of antiquarian bookselling with its Dickensian cast of characters. 

I recently received a request to acquire a book by Elisabeth Gleason on Casparo Contarini, a venetian diplomat who later became a cardinal and leader in the counter-reformation, including participating in the Conference of Regensburg (speaking of banned books, some of his letters were later on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum).  It might be a bit of a stretch, but the life of the book, I thought, interestingly paralleled the life of the subject when it was "deaccessioned" (library-speak for removing a book from the collection) from a public library in Florida and resold, only to be a part of our theological library among works on Luther and Eck and others whose positions Contarini attempted to reconcile during his life.

Another book about a book that we just received is a beautiful book on the Macclesfield Psalter, an illuminated English psalter.  The book includes a full-size page-for-page copy of the Psalter, and tucked in the back is an interesting description of the preservation work that was done on the deteriorating original.  It should be appearing on our new books display in the coming weeks.

While an illuminated psalter is deemed worthy of preservation, and an old library book can be resold on Amazon or eBay, what happens to all the old books that aren't so lucky.  Well, some are given very interesting new lives, as I found when perusing Paul Collins' blog, where he points to what some artists have done with old books, images of which are above and below.

 

More Book Art

Also, don't forget Luther's own program for sending theological books overseas, LILAP.  I suppose I should confess that some simply end up being recycled when no one is interested in them anymore.  So, the cup containing your morning coffee might have had a bit of the other copies of the life of Contarini that would have brought down the price on Amazon...

Will Keillor, Acquisitions Librarian

Full-Text Online Articles: Buddhism? Ecotheology? Christianity and Literature?

I don’t lose a lot of sleep over this question but the fact remains that I think about it at odd times: How do we get good online resources out to our patrons? I wrote earlier this fall about the Depth and Breadth of our periodical collection. I’d like to emphasize the many online, full-text options that are available to you.

To find serial content: look for a journal in our A-Z list. Some of the titles we’ve added access to this fall are:

·         Ecclesiology: Journal for Mission ,Ministry, and Unity

·         Horizons in Biblical Theology

·         Pneuma

·         Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus

      

Or look for articles in one of these databases (use HomeLab if off-campus):

·         Academic Search Premier

·         ATLA Religion Database (also includes ATLAS)

·         New Testament Abstracts Online

·         Old Testament Abstracts Online

·         AgeLine

ATLAS is one of our very best resources. This acronym refers to the Full-text journal articles that are available through the American Theological Library Association’s Religion Database. “Serials” is one of those library-geek-speak terms for literature that comes out periodically, or serially.

This month’s ATLAS report from ATLA noted that over 8, 050 articles and reviews were added with the November update. Here are three of the 11 new titles that were added:

·         Christianity and Literature, by Pepperdine University

·         Ecotheology, by Equinox (Continued by Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture)

·         Pure Land (new series), by International Association of Shin Buddhist Studies

Don’t limit yourself by just looking for resources in the Library’s collection (MARTIN). Try one of our serial options. Be sure to use your HomeLab account if you are accessing these resources off-campus.

Jennie Bartholomew, Electronic Services

Burn Before Reading

    Several things came to mind as I worked on the Reformation-themed bulletin board display in the library last month. (Many thanks to Judy Stone for her good work in putting up this display)

First, I was reminded afresh what a tumultuous time the Reformation era was. Charges and counter-charges, threats, rebuffs, and recriminations, many of which were tinged with, if not soaked in, violence, were commonplace among both religious and political leaders. For ordinary villagers and townsfolk who were caught in the cross-fire of this struggle for control it must have been an extraordinarily confusing and disorienting time. Perhaps, like so many other eras of cataclysmic change and excess, it was simultaneously the best and the worst of times.

    Also, it underscored how, in any age, loss of control and fear fuel the impulse to censorship. One can be sympathetic to these feelings, the desire to deny access to someone "for their own good." When much is at stake, when there is a lot to lose, the impulse to censor can become overwhelming. Done with a heavy hand, with fire and sword, however, it rarely works and mostly succeeds in diminishing the censors.

    A very interesting book on the stand-off between Luther and Church hierarchy at the Diet of Worms in 1521 is Confrontation at Worms; Martin Luther and the Diet of Worms by De Lamar Jensen. It includes the full text of the Edict of Worms issued by Emperor Charles V following the Diet in which Luther's writings were mandated for destruction. Jensen's commentary provides a detailed and engaging account of this seminal event in the history of the Reformation.

Bruce Eldevik

On the existence of God, ethics, and other minor details

What's your opinion on how people of faith should respond to doubt?

I can't pretend to having a long history with the literature of theology, but in my time since starting at Luther, I've been engrossed in the various trends that I've noticed in these publications.  One such is the large number of books recently published by atheists, by religious responders, or simply on the topic of the possibility and ramifications of belief in some type of divine being.

Before I observed this seeming trend, I had thought that a type of qualified agnosticism had sort of thrust both "militant" atheism and fundamentalist theism into the belligerent modernist past referenced in the term "post-modern."  But since the publication in 2006 of Dawkins' God Delusion (BL2775.3.D38), the library has received a large number of books on atheism, ranging from Berlinski's Devil's Delusion (BL240.3.B466), a work by a secular writer who attempts to skewer atheists who exhibit scientific pretentiousness in discussion of religious belief, to Novak's No One Sees God (BT1212.N68), the product description for which suggests:

In No One Sees God, Novak brilliantly recasts the tired debate pitting faith against reason. Both the atheist and the believer experience the same “dark night” in which God’s presence seems absent, he argues, and the conflict between faith and doubt stems not from objective differences, but from divergent attitudes toward the unknown. (read more)

As can be seen from some other titles on our New Book Rack, the question of belief in God has also been of interest in the study of ethics (not that this is necessarily related to the books mentioned above).  If you are interested in the intersection of ethics and religion/secularism, a few new titles you might want to look at are Society without God (BL2775.3.Z82), Ethics without God? (BJ37.E845), The Ethics of Deconstruction (B2430.D474.C74), Historical Dictionary of Ethics (BJ71.G46), and Ethics, Love, and Faith in Kierkegaard (B4377.E84). 

New Translations (and some MARTIN tips)

On a fairly unrelated note, I want to mention that we have recently ordered a number of translations of works by early Christian writers, many from the series Translated Texts for Historians.  These include works on Genesis, Ezra, and Nehemiah by Bede; The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon; The Divine Institutes by Lactantius; and others, all of which can be found by searching for the series name in a "title search."  While we're on the topic of using our catalog, MARTIN, I should mention that you can easily browse new acquisitions by clicking on the "New Books" tab above the search box.  You can select a time period, or search based on an author if you want to keep up with their recent publications held by the library.

Will Keillor, Acquisitions Librarian

Scavenger Hunt Yields Shuffles Not Snipe

We closed our celebration of Theological Libraries Month with an Open House on Thursday, October 30. Visitors viewed examples of Papyrus, Parchment and Paper in the Rare Book Room. Kudos to Bruce Eldevik who put this wonderful display together. Thanks for stopping by, we enjoyed sharing our treasures and treats with you.

We'd also like to congratulate the 4 winners of the Scavenger Hunt: Gretchen Pierskalla, Ben Worley, Michelle Olsen, and Dennis Gelinek. They found the answers to 9 clues, traversed all 8 floors of our stacks and looked at a variety of library materials: periodicals, folios, artwork, series.... They were awarded i-pod shuffles or a Bookstore gift certificate for $50.   Well done! 
— Jennie Bartholomew, Electronic Services Librarian

Michelle

Gretchen

Chats – Fireside and Other

This year marks the 75^th anniversary of the first "fireside chat," broadcast on March 12, 1933 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to a nation that had become mired in a deep economic depression. In his first radio "chat" FDR chose to talk about the bank crisis. He began, "I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking –." He went on to explain the bank holiday that had just been put into effect, but more broadly, to encourage a renewed confidence in the nation's banking system based on the measures the federal government was taking to shore it up.

Part of Roosevelt's message in this first chat sounds chillingly current:

We had a bad banking situation. Some of our bankers had shown themselves either incompetent or dishonest in their handling of the people's funds. They had used the money entrusted to them in speculations and unwise loans. This was of course not true in the vast majority of our banks but it was true in enough of them to shock the people for a time into a sense of insecurity and to put them into a frame of mind where they did not differentiate, but seemed to assume that the acts of a comparative few had tainted them all.

But FDR went on to conclude with this thought:

[T]here is an element in the readjustment of our financial system more important than currency, more important than gold, and that is the confidence of the people. Confidence and courage are the essentials of success in carrying out our plan. You people must have faith; you must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses. Let us unite in banishing fear.

Bold and inspirational words, words that made a difference, from a man who had just been elected our national leader a few months earlier.

Chat, of course, has taken on additional meanings in this age of computer mediated communication, including instantly available online help between a client and an agency or organization when the client is performing complex tasks over a network. Libraries too have adopted reference chat as another way to offer help when needed or desired to their students or patrons, and our library is among them. It's not the main way we interact, nor even one of the main. Yet it's there for you, on our home page, there if you are not sure which resource to choose or which step to take next.

"Instant message chat" at our library – perhaps not as bold or inspirational as FDR's fireside chats, but one possible means, when you're away from the library, to help you get where you need to go.

Bruce Eldevik
Election Day, 2008