In November our colleagues in Technical Services and Cataloging added 1028 items to Special Collections holdings. There were quite a few new items this month for both ACU Authors and ACU Archives collections.  A few more unbound periodical titles, but over 100 new-to-us hymnals for the Taylor Hymnal Collection. The remainder were much-needed monographs and tracts for the REST collection both new-to-us and second copies.  This great influx of tracts, booklets, and pamphlets is the result of focused effort to get an enormous backlog of these under control.  It takes serious, focused attention to do this kind of work properly and correctly.  We are grateful for Dr. Monty Lynn, Professor of Management, Emeritus, who has taken on this project in a special way. Monty’s patient attention to detail, and determination to bring us current, means that thousands of these items are now accounted for and available for research.  The lists the the past two months will also reflect the beginning of a major focused effort to work on the donation from Lincoln Christian College and Seminary.  These tracts are the first fruits of that work, along with the hymnals this month.  We anticipate much more work on the hymnals in the coming months as the end of the tract backlog nears.

Photograph of four men sitting on their briefcases in grass, each wearing suits, matching hats, and looking at books. A house can be seen in the background.  Ca.1920s.  From Jesse P. Sewell Photograph Collection: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth597076/

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.

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

In October our colleagues in Technical Services and Cataloging added 373 items to Special Collections holdings. There were a few items from the backlog that went into ACU Authors and ACU Archives collections, and only a few went into the general rare books collection. However, about three dozen new items (and a few second copies) fed into the Taylor hymnal collection.  Many bound and unbound periodical titles, some of them totally new to us, and other second copies, were also added.  The remainder were much-needed monographs and tracts for the REST collection both new to us and second copies.  Notice the several Spanish-language titles this month.  There were a few in previous months.  Language variants (often translations of works published in English) are always needed for the collection.  Please be on the lookout for these. Help build the collection in this area.

Photograph of four men sitting on their briefcases in grass, each wearing suits, matching hats, and looking at books. A house can be seen in the background.  Ca.1920s.  From Jesse P. Sewell Photograph Collection: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth597076/

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.

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

In September our colleagues in Technical Services and Cataloging added 817 items to Special Collections holdings.  We added about two dozen titles to the ACU Authors and ACU Archives collections, about that many also went into the general rare books and Taylor hymnal collections.  Several bound and unbound periodicals, some of them totally new and other second copies, were also added.  The remainder (about 700 items) were monographs and tracts for the REST collection.  Among the several outstanding additions this month were nearly complete runs of the yearbooks and academic catalogs from Northeastern Christian Junior College and Ohio Valley College (later Ohio Valley University).  These sets in particular bring significant geographical breadth and informational depth to our holdings of these materials from our sister schools.

Photograph of four men sitting on their briefcases in grass, each wearing suits, matching hats, and looking at books. A house can be seen in the background.  Ca.1920s.  From Jesse P. Sewell Photograph Collection: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth597076/

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.

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