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Recent News & Highlights
Events galore
Wednesday, October 19, 2011We've added a whole slew of new events to our schedule for the next couple of months, including educational seminars and brown bag lunches, with one or two more to come. Take a look at our Program & Workshop Schedule for more details.
Stay up-to-date with all of our activities by checking back here, subscribing to our blog, becoming a fan on Facebook, or following us on Twitter.
Free early journal access from JSTOR
Monday, September 26, 2011Doing research online just got a little bit easier. The JSTOR digital archive is now providing free access to over 550,000 out-of-copyright journal articles in 220 different journals, including 18 titles in our collections. We have added links to the catalog records for the journals we own, and are considering adding records for a few more that we think would be useful to our researchers.
Now you can read articles from the American Historical Review, Journal of Religion and its predecessors, Journal of Biblical Literature, and more from the comfort of your home or office.
Job opportunity - Director of Development
Tuesday, September 20, 2011We're looking for a half-time Director of Development to work with the board and help us acquire grant and donation funding for our ongoing work and future projects. If that sounds like an exciting opportunity to you, take a look at the full job description and submit your application today.
Updated finding guide - William E. Barton papers
Friday, September 9, 2011After 20 years, the William Eleazar Barton collection was in need of a little updating. April undertook that task, and now it has a new searchable finding guide.
Barton was a prominent minister, author, and editor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition to his pastoral duties, he spent time on various committees within the National Council of Congregational Churches, and served as editor to both the Bibliotheca Sacra and The Advance. His papers include personal and professional correspondence, manuscript materials, and a series of lantern slides that he collected.
New digital exhibit - History of the ABCFM
Thursday, August 18, 2011Of Faith and Courage: The History of the ABCFM began as a display in our conference room as part of a bicentennial celebration for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The visitors who saw it enjoyed it so much that we decided to create a digital version to share with everyone who couldn't make it to the library in person.
This exhibit provides a history of one of the most influential missionary groups of the 19th and 20th centuries, from its founding through its modern legacy. The ABCFM was a force for change, providing education and medical assistance to people around the world, from right here in the United States to Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific. Learn the stories of the men and women who traveled so far from home, and the people and places they encountered.
Featured link - western Canadian mission records
Monday, August 8, 2011There's a new repository listed on our Useful Links page. Up and Down the Coast is a digital project from the United Church of Canada Archives that contains hundreds of photographs, documents, and even videos dating from approximately 1850 to 1975. These materials chronicle the schools, medical and marine missions, and other "Indian work" in British Columbia.
Church Records and Community Preservation Funds
Tuesday, August 2, 2011Many local congregations in Massachusetts have access to a source of funding for historical preservation, made possible through the Community Preservation Act. Some are already tapping these to cover the costs of preservation and digitization of their records.
The Library also has funding available for digitizing records, and we are actively encouraging local churches with records pre-dating 1800 to contact us. Our mission is to preserve these very important documents of the past, and to make them fully accessible to researchers.
Do you have old records sitting in a closet or under the stairs? Please contact us here and we can discuss other options. If you don't have access to CPA funding, contact us. We are here to help! For further details and resources, see our recent blog post.
New archival finding guides - Arlington Pleasant Street and Cambridge Pilgrim Churches
Monday, June 13, 2011We've added two more guides for archival collections.
The Pleasant Street Church in Arlington, Mass. recently closed and sent their records to us. They have now been processed and are ready for use.
The Pilgrim Congregational Church of Cambridgeport closed in 1992. Their historical records have been with us since that time, but its guide predates our website. Helen Schubert, one of our Simmons GSLIS interns, has revised the finding guide and it is now available for use online.
New archival finding guide - Catharine Brown papers
Monday, May 9, 2011Catharine Brown was a young Cherokee woman educated by the ABCFM who went on to become a teacher among her people. Her story was so highly touted as a success by the American Board that a memoir of her career was compiled and edited by Rufus Anderson. The correspondence to and from Miss Brown used to create that memoir has been in our "small collections" files for many years, but previously lacked a detailed finding guide. Now each letter has a description including first lines and added annotations.
If Catharine Brown sounds interesting to you, take a closer look.
Launching a new CL exhibit site
Monday, May 2, 2011
We are proud to announce the official launch of our new online exhibit space, a dedicated subsite where we can showcase some of our unique collections and educational presentations.
Our first feature is a collection of engravings and brief histories of the churches in Boston from the 1843 Boston Almanac.
And we are already hard at work planning and building the next exhibit -- a digital version of our popular ABCFM bicentennial display -- so keep an eye out for more news on that in the coming months.