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

In February our colleagues in Technical Services and Cataloging added 198 items to Special Collections holdings.  The tract cataloging project resumed with just north of 150 new items.  About 20 A/V items in various formats came into the REST A/V collection.  The remainder went into the general rare books collection, the Taylor hymnal collection, and one new bound volume for REST periodicals.

We have a student worker dedicated to working on tracts and pamphlets for REST, and she is back at work.  I expect to see many more additions throughout the spring semester.  There are also quite a few more A?V items in various formats that will come into our REST and University A/V collections.

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.

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

Primary sources and scholarship are just clicks away

Each month I receive a brief email summary of the prior month’s download statistics on our online digital repository.  The global reach of the web facilitates access to primary sources and generative scholarship on a scale of volume and accessibility that was almost beyond our comprehension just a few ago.

Each month, without fail, I am amazed to see what the most popular items and publication are.  Month after month, with few exceptions, our Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD’s) and Stone-Campbell Books take the top spots by a fair margin.  Primary sources and generative scholarship, downloaded by the tens of thousands by readers in 179 countries.

Seeing the stats never gets old.  Neither does pondering what those usage statistics might mean.  What items from our past will someone find next that will mark a turning point in their research project? What article or piece of scholarship will someone download that result in new or better understanding?

This screen shot is not clickable, so here are the direct links:

The most popular papers were:
Church Directory and List of Preachers of Churches of Christ (4940 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 (2980 downloads)
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/etd/51
The Ethical Considerations of Physician-assisted Suicide (590 downloads)
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/dialogue/vol4/iss1/12

The most popular publications were:
Electronic Theses and Dissertations (11441 downloads)
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/etd
Stone-Campbell Books (7657 downloads)
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/crs_books
Dialogue & Nexus (1363 downloads)
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/dialogue

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

In January our colleagues in Technical Services and Cataloging added 73 items to Special Collections holdings.  Most (50 or so) fed into the main print collection (which we call REST) with several filling out the general rare books collection (which we call ‘C’) and the Taylor hymnal collection.  Of the 73, about 30 titles joined the bound REST periodicals collection.

We have a student worker dedicated to working on tracts and pamphlets for REST, and she is back at work.  I expect to see many more additions throughout the spring semester.

With a new year, I found a different old library photo to adorn these monthly updates. For 2023 we will use this photograph of the library from the old downtown campus…from the 1917 Prickly Pear.

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.

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