Author Archives: Mac Ice

Restoration Day recordings now available

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The ACU community celebrated Restoration Day on Tuesday, September 6, at the Brown Library Packer Forum and Wednesday September 7, at the Chapel on the Hill.

This year’s Restoration Day featured the opening of a new library exhibit that displays the first edition of Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address of the Washington (PA) Christian Association. This short book, written and published in 1809, is integral to the history of the Stone-Campbell Movement because it articulates many of our core beliefs about Christian unity.

Click here for more information about Restoration Day 2022.

Watch the videos here:

Evening Keynote, “Standing on Apostolic Ground,” Dr. Edward Robinson

 

Friends of the Year Presentation, Bradley and Wesley Williams

 

Chapel, Dr. Edward Robinson

On the Shelf: New items added to Center for Restoration Studies collections, August 2022

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In August our colleagues in Technical Services and Cataloging added 341 items to Special Collections holdings.  Nearly all fed into the main print collection (which we call REST), with only a few items going into ACU Authors and ACU Archive collections plus a couple of hymnals into the Taylor collection. We added catalog records for three new archival collections.  As has been the case for several steady months, most of the additions to REST are tracts and pamphlets.  The tract project continues at a very good pace and we will have a fine set of tracts, all cataloged, when this project is complete. The current count for this collection is just over 5,200 titles, with many titles represented by multiple copies. There are probably above 7,000 items already cataloged.  As usual, we added a few monographs which we either lacked altogether, or lacked in some variant of the edition or printing.  Some of the additions are newly published, others are new-to-us, and still others represent a second copy or a new-to-us edition or printing.  Technical Services looks fantastic, with fresh paint and carpet, and in spite of the renovations they worked hard to keep things moving through the pipeline.  With that behind us, now we will see some progress on additional projects with the usual cartloads of old books I send their way.  I will have the first update on those projects next month.

Callie Faye Milliken (Special Collections Librarian) and Dr. John Stevens (President) at the beginning of the transfer of books from the ‘old’ library in Chambers Hall to the ‘new’ Brown Library. Dr. Stevens, holding a rare copy of Biblia Sacra, led a procession of students and faculty carrying volumes into the new facility. From https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth597528/?q=books

Our goal is to build a comprehensive research-level collection of print materials by, for, and about the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement.  But beyond assembly and preservation, a collection should be discoverable by those who need the information.  Collecting and preserving is only part of our task; those objects must be described and made available.  Thanks to the close and careful work of our colleagues upstairs, who describe our holdings, these materials are now discoverable. By discoverable I mean a patron can utilize our online catalog (such as by searching by author, or title, or subject) to find these materials.

341 new items…cataloged, shelved, and ready for research:  Continue reading →

Restoration Day 2022

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You are invited to join the ACU community as it celebrates Restoration Day on Tuesday, September 6, at the Brown Library Packer Forum (6:00–8:00 pm).

This year’s Restoration Day will feature the opening of a new library exhibit that displays the first edition of Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address of the Washington (PA) Christian Association. This short book, written and published in 1809, is integral to the history of the Stone-Campbell Movement because it articulates many of our core beliefs about Christian unity.

In 2021, Wesley Williams of Memphis, Tennessee, and Bradley Williams of Nashville, Tennessee, entrusted the ACU Brown Library with a copy of this book, one of only four known original copies to exist in the world today. Members of the Williams family will be our honored guests at Restoration Day. Once the exhibit is unveiled, the ACU Brown Library will be the only location in North America where an original copy of this work will be on public display.

Our other special guest will be Dr. Ed Robinson, associate professor of history and religion at Texas College in Tyler. He will speak on the relevance of the Declaration and Address for today’s world. A reception following this lecture will be held in the ACU Brown Library’s Special Collection & Archives department, and a new exhibit displaying this work will debut at that time.

Dr. Ed Robinson

Dr. Edward Robinson

Dr. Robinson will also speak in the Graduate School of Theology’s weekly chapel service at the Chapel on the Hill in the Onstead-Packer Biblical Studies Building at 11:30 am on Wednesday, September 7.

Restoration Day is hosted by the Center for Restoration Studies (CRS) at ACU. The Center for Restoration Studies was established in 1986 and is jointly managed by the ACU Brown Library and the ACU College of Biblical Studies. The Center advances scholarship related to the Stone-Campbell Movement and is one of the most active research communities dedicated to collecting, preserving, and disseminating scholarship related to the history of the Stone-Campbell Movement, specifically Churches of Christ. The Center for Restoration Studies also provides a robust and vital link between Abilene Christian University and congregations within the Stone-Campbell Movement.