I have for some time been reading the journal of David Brainerd through the posting of his journal entries on this blog. For those of you who don’t know of David Brainerd, read about him here. The final entry in his journal was on October 2, 1746:

Friday, Oct. 2.

My soul was this day, at turns, sweetly set on God: I longed to be with him, that I might behold his glory. I felt sweetly disposed to commit all to him, even my dearest friends, my dearest flock, my absent brother, and all my concerns for time and eternity. Oh that his kingdom might come in the world; that they might all love and glorify him, for what he is in himself; and that the blessed Redeemer might see the travail of his soul, and be satisfied! ‘Oh come, Lord Jesus, come quickly! Amen.’

Note from Jonathan Edwards: Here ends his diary. These are the last words that are written in it, either by his own hand, or by any other from his mouth.

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Some more new acquisitions of interest:

Lee Palmer Wandel, The Eucharist in the Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Given the centrality of the eucharistic debate among the Reformers, the author seeks to compare and contrast Lutheran, Reformed, and Catholic views as understood in the XVI Century. The author is professor of history at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and has published previously on Zwinglian theology and Zurich history.

Uuras Saarnivaara, Luther Discovers the Gospel: New Light upon Luther’s Way from Medieval Catholicism to Evangelical Faith (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2005). This is a new English translation of a work originally written in Finnish in 1943, and published in Helsinki, Finland, in 1947. It looks at the influence of Augustine, Staupitz, and Scripture on the development of Luther’s thought on justification up to the end of 1518.

Michael J. Colacurcio,

Godly Letters: The Literature of the American Puritans (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006). I have not yet had opportunity to look much at this volume, so if any of you have input, feel free to comment. The TOC indicates the the author focuses particularly on Bradford, Shepard, Hooker, and Johnson. I look forward to the epilogue: “God’s Altar”: The Fall to Poetry. The author is professor of English at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Michael Wheeler,

The Old Enemies: Catholic and Protestant in Nineteenth-Century English Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). From the introduction: “Divisions between Catholics and Protestants have been a feature of English history since the Reformation. Even into the industrial nineteenth century, age-old theological disagreements were the cause of religious and cultural conflicts. [This book] asks why these ancient divisions were so deep, why they continued into the nineteenth century, and how novelists and poets, theologians and preachers, historians and essayists reinterpreted the religious debates.” Hmmm…

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When library patrons don’t amuse us (such as might happen here), librarians just amuse themselves (such as might happen here).

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While clearly catering to the many (??) younger male librarians of the world, the Ms. Dewey search engine is attempting to draw information seekers through a more — shall we say — ‘visually appealing’ search engine.

Fill in the blanks: Like most _____, however, Ms. Dewey quickly ceases to be _____ and just becomes rather annoying. I’m married and work with women who read this blog so I obviously must leave the evaluation to you.

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The BiblioTech Web blog, a helpful place to stay up-to-date on how technology is changing libraries, has posted this :

Okay, so the idea is perhaps valuable. But it won’t fly for the mere reason of its name: “citizendium?” Clever, but not helpful. Thanks, Jason, for pointing this out to me.

Kudos, by the way, to Scott Pfitzinger who runs the BiblioTech Web site for keeping me informed on the intersection of librarianship and really cool technology.

Your thoughts on Citizendium, my dear readers? Will it work? Is it worth it? is it possible to have such a project with the same authority as a reputable print series? Pros? Cons?

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At the behest of Russ (who himself has a blog, but, alas, I know not where), our resident computer genius, and in response to his passing chastisement concerning the recent inactivity here at CommonPlaces, I  give you these new and interesting book acquisitions in the library:

Nancy Kalikow Maxwell, Sacred Stacks: The Higher Purpose of Libraries and Librarianship (Chicago: American Library Association, 2006). Much of this book is pure drivel. It is, after all, a product of the ALA. The second chapter, however, was really quite interesting: Librarians Perform Sacred Functions. I came to be a librarian after several years of pastoral ministry, and so I found this chapter’s comparisons of librarians and clergy to be rather interesting (dare I say “insightful?”). That most clergy and librarians are INFJ in personality type is understandable. As is the comparison of librarians with ministers, especially in my context at a theological seminary. I was intrigued by her discussion of “Librarians as Respected Priests,” “Librarians and Receivers of Confessions,” “Librarians as Seers and Gurus,” and “Librarians as Magicians.” She obviously attributes way too much secular religiousity to the vocation of librarianship. Her points about libraries promoting community and transmitting culture to future generations, however, are extremely valid points. But perhaps the author goes a bit far in comparing librarians with “Ascetic, Self-Sacrificing Monks.” Oh, and it wouldn’t be an ALA product without “Librarians as Prophets for Social Justice.”

Charlotte Kroeker, ed., Music in Christian Worship: At the Service of the Liturgy (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2005). I mention this book only in order to recommend the first chapter, “Thinking About Church Music,” by the recently retired Nicholas Wolterstorff from Yale University. Wolterstorff’s philosophical argumentation usually goes way over my head, but I found this chapter to be particularly clear. His discussion of “fittingness” in musical style is especially helpful. Though I may not agree with all that he has to say here (I am, however, still chewing on much of it), it is refreshing to read something substantive and objective on the issue. And not by a Southern Baptist with a church to grow.

Ryan K. Smith, Gothic Arches, Latin Crosses: Anti-Catholicism and American Church Designs in the Nineteenth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006). Just plain interesting.

Roger Homan, The Art of the Sublime: Principles of Christian Art and Architecture (Ashgate, 2006). For when you are feeling like you need more culture in your life.

The Classical Good CD & DVD Guide, 2006 is a 1400+ page book of over 3000 reviews of Classical music CDs currently available. Really quite good.

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From the Oxford Journals mailer:

Ph.D. in Literature Program University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN, USA Interested in languages and literatures? Intellectually creative? Want curricular flexibility? Foreign study? Summers abroad? Intercultural, transnational, multi-linguistic. Five years full funding — tuition and stipend.

The University of Notre Dame invites you to apply to its innovative interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in literatures and Languages. Application deadline: 15 January 2006.

For Admissions, Fellowship and Program information,

please visit here.

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It’s here. Zotero is now available as a public beta. Fore more information about Zotero, read my previous blog entry here. Download zotero here.

It requires Firefox2.0, which as of yesterday is now officially available as a beta release here. Try it out. I am still playing around with Zotero, but when coupled with something like Open Office or Writely it looks to be a good open source alternative to programs I have purchased in the past (i.e., Nota Bene – Ibidem). I will write more on this after I’ve had the chance to become more thoroughly acquainted with it.

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New and forthcoming books of interest:

I. Philosophy

• Taking Ourselves Seriously and Getting It Right. Stanford Univ Press, Nov. 2006. Based on the 2004 lectures at Stanford, this book seeks to reflect on humans’ ability to genuinely reflect on themselves and their actions by contrasting the ideals of rationality and love. I include it because it might make for an interesting and probably highly contrasted comparison with John Calvin’s Institutes which also begins with knowledge of the self.

II. Religion

• Holyland U.S.A.: A Catholic Ride Through America’s Evangelical Landscape. The observations of a self-proclaimed Roman Catholic who becomes an editor for the United Bible Society, thus immersing him in Evangelical (loosely defined ??) culture.
• Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea. Belknap: Harvard Univ, Nov. 2006. An in-depth and “thoroughly researched” treatise about the impact early Christian scholars had on the formation of books as we know them today.

III. Culture

• The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness. More than just a book for tech geeks, this analysis of the development of the iPod discusses everything from the iPod’s edgy design to the culture of detachment that results from listening to the iPod in public places. The chapters are “shuffled” so that the order of chapters in your copy may differ from that in my copy.

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I once had a Hebrew professor who insisted that computers make you stupid. They do all the work for you, and are therefore superannuating (superannuate: the OED word-of-the-day, 04 Oct 2006) the art of research. Part of me sympathizes with this. But the larger part of me finds tools like Zotero to be the epitome of cool.

Zotero is a new tool for online research that aids in citation management from within the Firefox browser. It is currently in private beta (which means it is not yet available) but a public test version should be available this Fall. It looks incredible. In addition to the following information from their website, it appears that Zotero will even be able to grabe LC Subject Heading information as well. From the Zotero website:

A major feature of Zotero is its ability to sense when you are looking at an item (or items) on a web page. For instance, if you are looking at the record for a book on an online library catalog, Zotero’s book icon will appear in Firefox’s location bar (at the top of the browser window, where the current web address, or URL, appears), like so:

[image removed -- it reaked havoc on my display]

Simply click on the book icon and Zotero will save all of the citation information about that book into your library. (The Zotero window does not have to be open for this to work.) If you are looking at a group of items (e.g., a list of search results from Google Scholar or LexisNexis), a folder will appear. Clicking on the folder will produce a list of items with check boxes next to them; choose the ones you want to save and Zotero will do the rest. If you are currently working in a specific collection (that is, a collection is highlighted in the left column rather than “My Library”), the references will be copied to that location as well as your overall library.

The Zotero sensors should work with most library catalogs, some popular dot-coms such as Amazon, and many gated databases. Just look for icons in the location bar.

Eagerly awaiting the public beta…

By the way, a briefly annotated list of similarly helpful tools can be found here.

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