Ordination Exams

In the Reference room you will notice a book cart containing books and periodicals identified with blue cards. These resources have been set apart for the Master's level students who are completing their ordination exams this month.

These resources must be used in the Reference room (except for photocopying) and must be returned to the book cart. These exam materials will be available for regular circulation next week at the conclusion of the exams.

Rachel

Curriculum Boxes

Our collection of curriculum material is housed in archival boxes, with each box given a publisher name and a box number. This combination serves as a call number for all of the items in that box. When you are searching for teaching materials in the IRC, make sure you note the name of the box and its number in order to find the material you need.

We are frequently asked by patrons if they need to check out the box in which a particular piece is housed if they only want the one piece. We always like the box to remain on the shelves, so patrons are free to remove only what they need and want from our curriculum boxes, check those out at the main circulation desk, and leave the box for us.

Ann

Re-Shelving Carts

In the stacks you will notice re-shelving carts on each floor (north side). The re-shelving cart for the main floor (A-B section) is located on the southeast end next to the restrooms. Please make use of these carts for books or periodicals you don't wish to check out. This will ensure that our Circulation staff will properly re-shelve books on each floor. You may also return books to be re-shelved to the Circulation desk.

Rachel

Free Resources!

The Instructional Resource Center is the primary place to find current curriculum in the Library. When material is no longer current, we have to decide whether to move the curriculum to the stacks (where it can still be found by searching the base "CURRICULUM" through the online catalog) or to remove it from the collection.

Because of the sheer volume of curriculum that we get in any year, we cannot move everything that is not current to the stacks. In cases where the decision is made to remove the material permanently, our loss is your gain. There is a table at the south end of the IRC, right outside Norma's office, where we put weeded curriculum and it is yours for the taking. The table is labeled "FREE RESOURCES" and you are welcome to take what you find on that table if you see something that might be useful for your own Library.

Ann

Continuing Education

Once every four years -- like the Olympics! -- the International Association for Mission Studies (IAMS) meets somewhere in the world; in 2008 it will meet in Balaton, Hungary. At the same time, there is a meeting of the Documentation, Archives, Bibliography and Oral History study group (DABOH), which works on strategies for organizing, accessing and preserving materials for the study of the history of world Christianity.

I'll be heading off to that conference this week ... let me apologize in advance for not being here to help you with your reference questions! I should be back on Aug. 26, full of new knowledge and ideas.

For a description of the conference and its agenda, click HERE.

Paula

Historical Curriculum

We try to maintain a current collection of curricula that our students are likely to find when they work in local churches. This means that we collect Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist and many non-denominational titles.

Several years ago, we began to notice that more PhD students were looking at curriculum for their dissertations. Because of this, we have begun a project to archive Presbyterian curricula. We have pulled as much material as we have and located it at the south end of the IRC (right outside Norma's office). The process of organizing it and getting it cataloged will be another long term effort, but if you see "Historical Curriculum" as a collection when you are searching for an item, you'll know where to go. We made the decision to archive only Presbyterian Church materials because of space considerations and because other denominations are likely to have their own archives.

These materials will not circulate as we would not be able to replace many of them, but you are always free to look at them in the IRC.

Ann

Patron Photos

We have recently added a new feature to patron library accounts – patron photos. If you are a Union-PSCE or BTSR student, staff, faculty, alumni, or grandfathered patron of Morton Library, please stop by the Circulation Desk so we may snap your photo.

Your photo will be attached to your account. These photos are exclusively for our patron database and will not be sold or shared.

Thank you for your patience during this time of transition as we work toward serving you more efficiently.

Rachel

News, Culture, Politics

Some people are disappointed to find that we don't have paper subscriptions to certain general-interest magazines they like to read, such as Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, New Yorker and the Economist, or periodicals in the social sciences like Psychology Today. But they may not realize that we do subscribe to these journals online. There isn't even any time delay on these titles -- you can read even the most current issue (many academic journals have an "embargo" period of as long as a year, during which their content is not available through online subscription, but only on paper). You can access them either through Academic OneFile or through our MetaLib search tool.

We also have the entire text of the New York Times since 1985 in searchable form online, plus transcripts and recordings of every National Public Radio (NPR) broadcast since 1990, and lots more besides. For a fuller description of the materials you can access through Academic OneFile, have a look at this page.

Paula