On the Shelf: New items added to Center for Restoration Studies collections, October 2023

In October our colleagues in Technical Services and Cataloging added 191 items to Special Collections holdings.  Continuing the work from summer, we added more language editions of Max Lucado’s books.  There will be many more of these coming into the collection soon, giving us as an authoritative collection of Max’s books as can be found anywhere.  Between tracts, bound periodicals, A/V materials, and monographs, the REST collection grew by almost 160 items.  We added one new hymnal to the Taylor hymnal collection and the remainder went into the ACU ARCH and ARCH A/V, two collections devoted to anything published or produced by the University.

Library, Abilene Christian College, 1917. The library was in the Administration Building on the old downtown campus. The Prickly Pear Yearbook for 1917 is available at: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth39970/m1/44/

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.

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

Online digital repository reaches new milestone, thousands of items just clicks away

In September our online digital repository reached a new milestone, with over 100,000 downloads in a single month.  Launched in 2014, the repository contains over 27,000 items: from single photographs to audio recordings to full-length books and dissertations.  In September researchers from 1800 institutions in 185 countries downloaded materials.

There is a wealth of information here.  What can you discover?

This screen shot is not clickable, so here are the direct links. Each link opens in a new window:

The most popular papers in September were:
Church Directory and List of Preachers of Churches of Christ (6613 downloads)
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/crs_books/416
The Effect of Anxiety and Depression on College Students’ Academic Performance: Exploring Social Support as a Moderator (2669 downloads)
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/etd/51
A Qualitative Case Study Examining Parental Involvement and Parent-School Partnership Strategies in a Middle School: Perspectives of Parents, Teachers, and Administrators (931 downloads)
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/etd/332

The most popular publications in September were:
Everett Ferguson Photo Collection (27432 downloads)
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/ferguson_photos
Lectureship and Summit Audio Collection (15888 downloads)
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/sumlec_audio
Electronic Theses and Dissertations (15674 downloads)
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/etd

This Just In: Sermon charts from Billy Carson Reed

A few weeks ago we received a small collection of ten cloth sermon charts used by Billy Carson Reed (1932-2008) in his preaching, ca. 1960s-1972.  Reed studied at Oklahoma Christian University (BA) and Kansas State University (MA), and preached in Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas and Colorado.

The charts are hand-drawn on cotton bedsheets and measure about 3-4-ft square. They are our newest collection and are in the queue for processing.  Pictured here are three of them…our newest collection!

Cloth sermon chart, Billy Carson Reed Papers, Center for Restoration Studies, Special Collections and Archives, Abilene Christian University

Cloth sermon chart, Billy Carson Reed Papers, Center for Restoration Studies, Special Collections and Archives, Abilene Christian University

Cloth sermon chart, Billy Carson Reed Papers, Center for Restoration Studies, Special Collections and Archives, Abilene Christian University