Beacon Street Blog

Beneficent Congregational Church in Providence, Rhode Island was organized in 1743. The structure depicted here was completed in 1810, and remains the home of the congregation to this day.

The building was extended in the late 19th century, funded by a donation from industrialist and philanthropist (and prominent member of the church) Henry J. Steere, in honor of his father, Jonah. In the 20th century, the exterior was refaced in red brick. Beneficent Church is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

To learn more about Congregational churches in Rhode Island, search for "Congregational churches - Rhode Island." in the library catalog.

--Robin

I'm Jaime Bonney and I am interning this year at the Congregational Library, not as a librarian-to-be but as an aspiring pastor. In turning to the stacks instead of the pews, I hope to join the long line of "scholar pastors" who treasure, safeguard, and learn from the long arc of history that holds the present, and it is in particular with an ear to "empathetic listening" that I turn to the library's holdings.

As my first project, I have been exploring the uncatalogued records of German Americans in the mid-19th to early-20th centuries. My first assignment: to read an unknown German-language newspaper, Sonntagsblatt für Schule und Haus (Sunday Paper for School and House), and figure out what it is. After reading its first article, I believe it is a publication intended for children's religious education. It tells a simple story about the conversion of a young girl, mostly through an allegorical tale of providing water to a broken flower. As a piece of writing, it is perhaps of little merit, but as a window into the state of the German Evangelical Church in the second decade of the 20th century, the writing, its quality, its themes, its mission of reaching children, may have much to reveal. I look forward to many more forays into this paper and other treasures of the German-language archives.

-Jaime

We will be closed this coming Monday, October 10th, in observance of Columbus Day.

All of our digital resources will still be available, of course, but if you want more in-depth assistance by phone or email, you'll have to wait until we get back into the office on Tuesday.

We hope you have a pleasant weekend.

Samuel Lamson Gould was a Congregational minister and doctor. Born in Topsfield, Mass., he graduated from Bowdoin Medical College in 1832. He practiced medicine in Searsport and Orrington for the next six years. He then studied theology under Wales Lewis Brewer in Dixmont for two years and was ordained at Bristol in 1839. During his ministerial career, he held pastorates across western Maine, including Boothbay, New Portland, and Phillips.

Dr. Gould married twice; fathered ten children with his first wife, Ann; and lived to be almost 83 years old, outliving most of his children. His son (and namesake) Samuel, served as a surgeon in the Navy, and died in battle in Florida during the Civil War. Another son, William, joined the Army and died in Virginia in 1864 just before the Seige of Petersburg. Three of his seven daughters - Mary, Clara, and Alice - married, but don't seem to have had children of their own.

Gould does not appear to have been a prolific writer, but judging by his obituaries he was very well liked by his patients and congregants.

--Robin

[] We've been members of Digital Commonwealth almost since the beginning, and we've been using the digitization services provided by the Boston Public Library (conveniently just down the street) for several years. Now, thanks to a fantastic grant, the BPL is able to offer free digitization to DigiComm members for the next year. Keep reading to find out how in their press release.

The Digital Commonwealth of Massachusetts is pleased to announce the application process by which current Digital Commonwealth members may apply for free digitization services from the Boston Public Library (BPL).

A recent grant awarded to the Boston Public Library by the MBLC (Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners) and funded by the LSTA (Library Services and Technology Act) provides an excellent opportunity for organizations that either are currently individual members of Digital Commonwealth, or are interested in joining. Digital Commonwealth is a statewide collaboration focused on providing access to digital resources of cultural institutions in Massachusetts.

The online application form is now available at http://bit.ly/dcbplform. Starting in October 2011, during the year-long grant, requests will be reviewed each month and approved requests will be scheduled quarterly. Organizations interested in digitizing entire collections of photographs, or manuscripts, or a series of books or bound volumes are encouraged to apply. The BPL might limit the number of images digitized for one institution to approximately 50 bound volumes (1,500 pages) or 5,000 individual items (e.g., photographs, manuscript pages, posters) depending on the number of applications it receives. Although the BPL cannot currently digitize microforms, roll film, audio, or video, we encourage you to include these formats in your application so that we may evaluate which services to provide past the term of this grant.

The BPL is prepared to accommodate as many valid requests as possible. The BPL reserves the right to prioritize the sequence of scanning based on various factors including when the collection is ready for digitization, how long the organization has been a member of the Digital Commonwealth, and workflow-related issues (e.g., size, format, quantity).

This program is one highlight of a new partnership between the Digital Commonwealth and the BPL. Through this partnership, the Digital Commonwealth and the BPL will work together towards a shared goal of creating, maintaining, and expanding a successful and thriving statewide system to provide access to digital resources in Massachusetts.

Membership at either the smaller cultural institution level or larger cultural institution is a requirement to be considered for free digitization services. The Digital Commonwealth’s website includes a page with information about membership fees as well as the rights and responsibilities of members (http://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/doc/memberfees). Digital services to the third membership category, Group Sponsoring Organizations, will also occur during the grant, but the BPL will be working directly with one main representative from each group to target digitization services that will supplement and complement their existing digitization efforts. Organizations that currently are group members (within the Group Sponsoring Organizations) can apply for the free digitization services if they become individual members of Digital Commonwealth.

Digital Commonwealth members who receive free digitization services from the Boston Public Library during this grant project will need to complete tasks associated with the creation of metadata for the digital objects created during the grant and also need to commit to making the digitized items available online through the Digital Commonwealth system. The BPL is prepared to conduct customized site visits and consultations in order to assist in this process. Digital Commonwealth will also be conducting a series of general workshops to support member digitization issues.

This is a great opportunity for institutions who have been hesitant to spend a ton of money having their collections scanned. Even if you don't plan to make the resulting images available to the general public, they can be a great way to send non-circulating research materials to your patrons who can't come see them in person.

We hope you'll take advantage of this funding, and help expand the Digital Commonwealth catalog. Go look!

--Robin

The World Council of Churches and Globethics.net have just launched a new digital repository of theological resources. "The Global Digital Library on Theology and Ecumenism (GlobeTheoLib) is a multi-lingual global digital library on theology and ecumenism that offers access to more than 200,000 texts, documents and other academic resources." It combines a large number of research materials -- both free and subscription-based -- in one convenient place for the use of anyone studying religion or ethics.

GlobeTheoLib aims to:

• use new digital models of information exchange to create greater visibility for theological knowledge and insights from churches of the global South;
• make use of information and communication technologies to counter imbalances in global theological education systems;
• respond to the needs of theological colleges, faculties and institutes for quality resources for theological education and research;
• overcome barriers to accessing existing digital content;
• support and enable well-equipped participation in the teaching of Christian theology, the generation of ecumenical and intercultural perspectives, and the formation of a new generation of ecumenical leaders.

GlobeTheoLib has a special focus on intercultural theology and ecumenism, including contextual theologies, world mission and missiology, gender and theology, interreligious dialogue, theological education, and World Christianity.

For individual registered participants, such as theological researchers, educators and students, GlobeTheoLib offers free-of-charge access to:

• journals, magazines, books, training material, dissertations and news documents on theology and ecumenism, with a focus on full text documents
• licensed content such as journals, reference works, and e-books

Registered participants may also submit their own documents and publications to GlobeTheoLib.

Participants have access to other online libraries of Globethics.net, such as the Global Digital Library on Ethics, as well as the networking facilities and online workgroups of Globethics.net.

Though registration is required to access the GTL resources, the process is quick, free, and allows you to specify your fields of interest. It also allows you to create and join workgroups, through which you can collaborate with other researchers around the world.

--Robin

Born in Machias, Maine, Samuel Harris attended Bowdoin College and Andover Theological Seminary. He was ordained in 1841, after which he held pastorates at Conway, Mass. (1841-1851), and Pittsfield, Mass. (1851-1855). Harris was a professor of Theology at Bangor Theological Seminary from 1855 to 1867, then became the fifth president of Bowdoin College, where he served until 1871. After resigning from Bowdoin, he returned to teaching for 25 more years as the Dwight Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School.

During his later years, Harris also wrote extensively, publishing his four best known works: The Kingdom of Christ on Earth, The Philosophical Basis of Theism, The Self-Revelation of God, and God the Creator and Lord of All.

For more information about Samuel Harris and his writings, search for "Harris, Samuel" in our online catalog.

--Robin

Don't forget, the next installment in our Brown Bag Lunch series is tomorrow at noon.

"Women of Smoke and Fire"

During and after the Civil War, many women volunteered as teachers to former slaves through the American Missionary Association. Join longtime Christian educator Faith Johnson as she highlights a few of their stories, the dangers and prejudices they faced, and why so many more women than men answered the AMA's call.

Bring your lunch and a curious mind.

12:00 - 1:00 pm

Free.
No registration is required, but we appreciate an RSVP so we know how many people to expect.

This image of First Congregational Church, Sandisfield, Massachusetts, shows a crowd gathering on the steps of the church. The church was organized in 1756. The caption reads, "5445 Photograph. Congregational Church, Sandisfield, Mass. 150th. Anniversary, Aug. 27, 1906." A note on the back reads, "Burned ca. 1909."

According to a descendant of The Art Store founder, this was part of a series by a local photographer named George Taylor. The information on another image of the church indicates that it was Sandisfield Congregational's third meetinghouse, built in 1852 and destroyed by a fire in May 1908.

After the loss of their meetinghouse, the congregation was listed as "inactive" in denominational yearbooks for several decades, but never managed to reassemble or construct a new church building. Sandisfield is a small enough town that the congregants of First Church probably just joined the nearby New Boston Congregational Church or scattered to the churches in surrounding towns.

--Robin

As one of my first projects when I started here at the library in June, Jessica asked me to continue to re-house the lantern slide collection of William Eleazar Barton that she had started. It was a simple and satisfying project that required no learning curve or institutional memory and also was perfect for those times when your brains started hurting from the deep thinking you are doing for more challenging projects.

Once I was finished I went to add the slides to the rest of the Barton collection, and that was when I realized that the finding guide could probably use a bit of revamping. So began my first finding guide overhaul here at the Congregational Library. It was fun, the collection was super interesting, and I learned a lot about how to create a Congregational-Library-approved finding guide.

For your informational pleasure, a bright, shiny new finding guide is now available on our website: William Eleazar Barton papers, 1888-1953.

This collection contains the papers of William Eleazar Barton and family from 1888-1953 (with the bulk covering 1888-1930). Papers include correspondence; writings such as sermons, lectures, articles and outlines for books; photographs, scrapbooks, and printed materials; Barton's lantern slide collection; and materials created and related to Barton's son and author of "History of Business", Bruce Barton.

-April

[]If you've done any research in an academic setting within the last decade, chances are good that you've used the JSTOR article database. Until this week, all of their full-text articles could only be viewed through a paid subscription, usually at a university or large public library. In response to recent attempts to steal their content, however, JSTOR has moved up their scheduled plans to make more than 500,000 out-of-copyright articles available for free.

They haven't announced specific journals yet, but with more than 220 titles included in the Early Journal Content program, we are hopeful that some of them will be useful to our patrons. As these resources become available, we will list the ones most likely to be of interest in our online catalog.

To read more about the (minor) controversy behind this decision, take a look at the recent Library Journal article, which includes a demonstration video for JSTOR's upcoming free content.

--Robin

Plymouth Congregational Church in Seattle, Washington was founded in 1869. The structure depicted here was the fourth used by the church, constructed between July 1911 and May 1912. It was located at Fourth Avenue and University Street, downtown Seattle. The building was demolished in 1966 to be replaced by the church's current home.

The photograph used to create the original postcard was taken by the short-lived firm of Nowell & Rognon.  The partnership between noted Canadian and American photographers Orville J. Rognon and Frank Nowell only lasted about two years (1911-1913) after the two met through their participation in the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition of 1909.

For more information about Washington churches, search for "Congregational churches - Washington (State)" in our online catalog.

--Robin

As we bid farewell to Abraham Miller, Archives Assistant, we welcome into the library Steven Picazio. Steven started his Simmons GSLIS library internship today. He will be with us Tuesday and Wednesday mornings until December 2. Steven is a graduate of Saint Michael's College in Colchester, VT with a BA in English. This is his final semester at Simmons and he will receive his MSLIS in December 2011. He is interested in cataloging and is working with Rachel to complete sections of the collection not yet cataloged. Steven has been a sales associate at Borders in Burlington, MA.

Please stop by and say hello to Steven who will be spending time at the desk in the Reading Room.

We also have a new cataloging volunteer, Nishtha Lakhanpal. Nishtha began her studies at Simmons GSLIS in January 2011. Nishtha has both a BA and MA in English from Panjab University, Chandigarh, India. Prior to beginning classes at Simmons, Nishtha was a Branch Associate at ING Financial in Toronto.

-Claudette

As the summer draws to a close this week, we say goodbye to two more people.

Emily Anderson, one of our cataloging volunteers, is heading back to school. She's been with us since March, and has been very helpful in adding our acquisitions from Chicago Theological Seminary and some of our existing materials to the online catalog.

Abraham Miller, our part-time Archives Assistant, is also destined for greener pastures. Abe began his time here as an intern two years ago, and took over the assistant position when Sam Smallidge graduated from Simmons last year. Now Abe has finished the archival program as well, and is passing the torch to Sari Mauro, who volunteered here last summer. We are extremely grateful for all the hard work Abe has put into digitizing and cataloging the items in our Image Collection, as well as spearheading our participation in the Digital Commonwealth program. We will miss his dedication and good humor, but we know that they will serve him well as he moves on to bigger and better things.

We mention our interns and volunteers a lot on this blog. Because we have such a small staff, we simply couldn't accomplish some of the ambitious plans we have for our collections without their assistance. And since Claudette, Jessica, Rachel, and April are all graduates of the Simmons GSLIS program, they enjoy mentoring the next generation of library professionals, and cultivating some of the workplace skills that can't always be learned in a classroom. It's a win-win situation that we hope will continue for a very long time to come.

Our archivist, Jessica, mentioned last month that she would soon be going on maternity leave, and we're happy to announce that the time has finally arrived.

Dashiell Matheny was born early Monday morning. Mother and son are both doing great. We wish all the best to Jessica, her husband Matt, and the newest member of their family.

At long last, our second digital exhibit is ready for viewing.

Of 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.

--Robin

First Congregational Church, Hopkinton, New Hampshire, was formed through the following covenant, dated November 23, 1757. The covenants were used to outline the duties and obligations of those who joined the church as members. As people joined the church, they signed the covenant, seen at the bottom of the photograph.

Click here for a larger image.

This is one reason that church records are valuable for genealogical research: the records provide concrete dates and locations for persons. Two hundred and fifty year old records are important because they allow us to perceive eighteenth century America. Current church records can have enduring value for much the same reason. For more information on preserving your church records, please view the Congregational Library's Records Management resources.

For more information about church records, search "Church records and registers" in the library catalog.

--Abraham

Harpswell is a town located within the Casco Bay region of Maine. The meetinghouse, depicted below, was the meetinghouse used first by the Second Parish of North Yarmouth, Maine, organized in 1753. The church later reorganized as the Elijah Kellogg Church of South Harpswell during the mid-nineteenth century.

What strikes me about this print is the color. The unseen sun, at the horizon, is depicted with reds and oranges in the background, with the sky above still blue. Aesthetically, these colors fit well with the varied greens of the grass and the graves in the foreground. The color, combined with the detail, creates a rich image, where the visual image can stand beside the written word as a descriptive medium.

For more images of churches in Maine, search for "Church buildings - Maine - Pictorial works" in the library catalog.

--Abraham

[] Much like the Protestant denominations in the United States, members of the United Church of Canada and the Methodist churches set up missions across Canada during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to aid and educate the Aboriginal peoples they encountered during the country's colonization. Many of the records from those missions have ended up in the UCC archives at their headquarters in Toronto. Just as the Congregational Library is striving to make our missionary materials available online to researchers everywhere, the United Church of Canada has set up repositories for their digitized records.

Up and Down the Coast contains hundreds of photographs, documents, and even videos dating from approximately 1850 to 1975 that chronicle the schools, medical and marine missions, and other "Indian work" in British Columbia. While these materials may not offer the most flattering look at the missionaries themselves from a modern perspective, they are important records of Canada's national history and the recent history of the First Nations.

The following is an engraved portrait of Hiram Bingham (1789-1869), Congregational Minister and missionary. Bingham was a missionary, through the American Board, to Honolulu, in Hawaii, then known to the missionaries as the Sandwich Islands. The print was engraved in Honolulu in 1838, and impressed, from a lithograph, in Paris. Bingham served with the American Board for twenty years in Hawaii, between 1820 and 1840.

It was during this period that the Kawaiahao Church was established in Honolulu. For more information on Missions to Hawaii, search the online catalog for the subject "Missions - Hawaii".

--Abraham

One of my activities this summer has been to review and document the interns that I've supervised over the past 11 years. As it turns out, there have been a total of 41 volunteers and Simmons interns. This does not include the people who have reported to Claudette. It's amazing and overwhelming how much we have accomplished with these students' help. What's so particularly great is that there's a huge range of activities that have been done.

• Old reliable: church and personal papers processed
• Image collection scanning and cataloging
• Displays created
• Metadata created for our ongoing Massachusetts church records digitization project
• Indexing for our in-house publication, The Bulletin
• Multiple interns (as many as 3) working together on one project at the same time: Park Street and Old South Churches
• Off-site work (again PSC and OSC)
• Extensive use of wikis and requests for interns to participate here on our blog
• Creation of new collections: specifically our Object Collection
• Re-evaluation and revision of collections, particularly the Small Collections

As time goes on and I spend more time here, I'm less likely to request help on a straight-up 2 boxes to be sorted. I never thought that I was capable of keeping track of two interns on one project back in 2005, but now I'm not only request two interns for a project, but it's a highly complex, high-responsibility arrangement that has spanned almost 2 years at Old South Church. I have come to expect a great deal from the people who choose me out of the sea of internship choices and I am gratified by how much I get back in return.

Thank you again to the dozens of students I have had in my care and a preemptive thank you to those who will come to us in the future.

For those alumni that are keeping track here and want to participate in a where are they now segment, drop me a line. (Be sure to cc Claudette — see previous entry about imminent maternity leave on my horizon.) We'd love to hear any memories you may have of working here, of the project you did, and what you're doing now.

-Jessica

There are a lot of comings and goings here at the library:

Both our summer interns, Katherine and Peter, will be wrapping up this week. Everyone on staff is queued up for some vacation time, as one expects by this time of the season, and by this time next month we will be saying goodbye to Abraham and saying hello to Sari.

And finally a leave-but-come-back: The project I've been working on for the past 9 months is almost done and ready to meet the world. There's still some work to be done over the next few weeks at the cellular level. In other words, I'll be on maternity leave starting sometime within the next few weeks and returning in November. When the Little Bean has acclimated, there will be a notice here, per the request of several folks.

-Jessica

Using microfilm for research just got a lot easier at the Congregational Library. We are now the proud owners of a ScanPro 2000 microfilm scanner. It allows you to not just look at the microfilms as they are, but it also comes with image editing software to improve the experience. You can clean up older texts, magnify for easier reading, and select only the portions of the records you want. There are several output options as well -- print a hard copy, email files, or save files to a flash drive.

Just by playing around with the interface during my training, I can tell that some of our researchers are going to find this extremely helpful. If you've been daunted by the thought of using microfilm before, please consider giving it a shot on our new machine.

--Robin

We're pleased to welcome scholars from the Congregational Foundation for Theological Studies once again this coming week. They are always a lively bunch who keep the staff jumping as we help them track down resources on their areas of interest.

If you're not attending CFTS and are planning to come into the library to do research of your own, we suggest avoiding those two days -- Wednesday the 27th and Friday the 29th -- so that we can offer you our full attention (and guarantee you a place to sit).