I am reviving the weekly webliography in which I summarize in a single post the “dogeared items from the web” listed in the sidebar. Dogeared from the web, March 1-6, 2009:

• Obama Questions Constitutionality of Copyright Fines. Okay, so this isn’t about copyright and libraries but I am very glad to see the Executive beginning to question the ridiculous structure of our current copyright laws. [via tgdaily.com]
• Before and After: Barren Attic to Programmer’s Paradise. Again, I am invoking the commonplacing nature of this site and giving something completely unrelated to theological libraries. But who among us has no interest in reclaiming dead space to increase productivity? [via Lifehacker.com]
• Compile Wikipedia Articles and Publish as a Book. This page shows you how to create a book from Wikipedia articles in three steps. Books can be created in PDF form or ordered for printing on the PediaPress website.
• Zotero Library to RSS Feed and Anatomy of the Zotero Library to RSS Feed Pipe. A very cool development concerning the Zotero citation management plugin for Firefox. [via the Disruptive Library Technology Jester]
• Twenty-nine reports about the future of academic libraries as compiled by John Dupuis, Head of the Steacie Science & Engineering Library at York University in Toronto. [HT: iLibrarian]
• LibriVox now has the free audio to Martin Luther’s Large Catechism. I have not personally listened to this particular recording so please let me know what you think.
• An interesting idea for a reference kiosk using Skype. [HT: Digital Reference]
• Resisting the Kindle – The Atlantic (March 2, 2009) and In Defense of the Kindle – The Atlantic (March 5, 2009). Very good reading. I gave my two cents about these articles here.

Popularity: 37% [?]

Pages that I have encountered throughout the week which relate to libraries, technology, theology, and anything else I found interesting:

• Library Use of E-books, 2008-09 Edition via the Distant Librarian. Data in this report is based on a survey of 75 academic, public and special libraries. Librarians detail their plans on how they plan to develop their e-book collections, what they think of e-book readers and software, and which e-book aggregators and publishers appeal to them most and why. Other issues covered include: library production of e-books and collection digitization, e-book collection information literacy efforts, use of e-books in course reserves and inter-library loan, e-book pricing and inflation issues, acquisition sources and strategies for e-books and other issues of concern to libraries and book publishers.
• Bibliomaniacs and the Medieval Book Curse. This site is based on a paper written by Sandra Anderson for a History of the Book course as a part of her MLIS degree at the University of Alberta. It includes a section examining “book curses as a library security measure that was used as a deterrent against bibliomaniacs for thousands of years but that is almost completely unknown today.”
• Get 91% Off Microsoft Office Ultimate [Deals] via Lifehacker. A Microsoft student promotion that slashes 91% off a copy of Office Ultimate applies to anyone with a .edu email address—and most universities offer .edu addresses to their alumni for free. Microsoft Office Ultimate, which retails for $680, is available to students for only $60 until May 16th.
• Firefox plug-in personalises search results via Pandia Search Engine News. SurfCanyon is a Firefox plug-in that claims mind reading capabilities. Even though there’s no actual magic involved, this nifty little app does a great job of digging though the search results for the hits you need, even though Google buried them on page 12.
• Sofas and schoolwork
• LifeWay Is Going To Use Twitter via Said at Southern.
• Stanford and Deep Web Technologies Partner on Federated Search via Library Technology Guides.
• WAMPANOAG REVIVAL via languagehat.
• Music Made from Microfiche. That’s right. Learn how to take the humble library microfiche, translate the light and dark values into MIDI, and feed it to a Casio keyboard for playback. But why?
• C&RL preprints go open access via Steven Cohen. College & Research Libraries (C&RL), the bi-monthly scholarly journal of the Association of College and Research Libraries now provides its articles online in full-text.
• DIY Bookmaking: The Book Binding Guy via MAKE. I do old-wold bookbinding with Amish-made tools in my off-time. And now so can you.
• Puppy Linux 4.0 Released [Linux] via Lifehacker. The latest version of a Linux distribution that can be run entirely from a thumb drive.
• 8 Top Alternative Search Engines via iLibrarian.
• Web 2.0 Predictions for 2008 via Don Hinchcliffe’s Web 2.0 Blog.
• Wikipedia vs. Subscription Reference Sources via Digital Reference.
• MIT reinvents the Post It Note via Tame the Web: Libraries and Technology.
• Oxford University Library Services chooses MetaLib by Ex Libris via Library Technology Guide Automation Update.
• 15,000 Classical Hebrew Books for Free Download The non-profit Society for the Preservation of Hebrew Books announced that it added two ancient book collections to the Friedberg-Ryzman collection of more than 15,000 Hebrew books and works of Judaica online. HT: Data Security: Internet Privacy Blog
• Next Generation Data Format via Planet Code4Lib. Issues related to the next generation catalog.

Popularity: 25% [?]

I am often amused at the juxtaposition of books that come across my desk. Today I point out two new acquisitions to our library which make for a rather unlikely pairing. If, however, the former is correct, then the latter is all that much more important.

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt argues that “if morality represents how people would like for the world to work, then economics shows how it actually does work.” Incentives, cheating, fabrication, self-interest, convenience, randomness, and power are all addressed in terms of how they influence economics and therefore how they effect society. He argues that we live in a age where nothing is as it seems. Everything has a hidden side. Informed decisions, then, are next to impossible since someone else always has the upper hand.

The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment by Tim Challies answers the question that John MacArthur poses in the foreword, “With such a broad patchwork of competing ideas all clamoring for mainstream acceptance, how can the average person in the pew be expected to know what is truly sound, safe, and biblical?” In placing the discipline of discernment in connection with biblical truth and theology, the church’s corporate witness, and personal sanctification, Challies offers a great word on how to discern one’s way through such a freakonomic world. He writes:

Discernment is not a pursuit that stands on its own in the life of the Christian. Rather, it is inexorably connected to others. Those who wish to be discerning must have a posture of discernment. The must commit to reading and studying the Bible, to participating in the local church, and to pursuing the character traits of a Christian. The lives of these people will display the proof of discernment in their obedience to the Bible and in their maturity as Christians.

Popularity: 16% [?]

It’s time to grab a bucket and start bailing.

I think it was D. L . Moody who famously quipped that the Church is like boat: in order for a boat to be what it was created to be, it must be in water. But if too much of the water gets in the boat it will sink. Similarly, in order for the Church to be what she was created to be she must be in the world. But if too much of the world gets in the Church, she will sink. Okay, so this analogy only goes so far and is admittedly flawed. Don’t miss his point, though.

James Twitchell’s Shopping for God: How Christianity Went From In Your Heart To In Your Face (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007) traces part of the problem to an idea conceived by a man named Mel Stewart. Actually, Mel just capitalized on an idea he saw while driving one day: a moveable type sign in front of a church. Heretofore churches did not typically have large signs since religion was considered private and signage was too public.

He added flourescent lights. He added larger letters. Twitchell thinks he turned American churches on to the idea of branding, the topic which the remainder of the book seeks to address. A fascinating study of the business of church marketing in America.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Stephen M. Hildebrand, The Trinitarian Theology of Basil of Caesarea: A Synthesis of Greek Thought and Biblical Truth (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2007) is, despite its rather impressive title, a readable, understandable, and helpful evaluation of the most prescient points of Basil’s theological contributions. Hildebrand’s discussion of Basil’s thought as evidenced by his choice of words in argumentation rightly revolves around two sets of words: homoouisios/homoiousios (ομοουσιος/ομοιουσιος) and prosopon/hypostasis (προσοπον/υποστησις). The first set refers to the famous debate on the “substance” (ousia) of Christ and whether it is similar to (homoi-ousia) or the same as (homo-ousia) that of God the Father. Hildrebrand clearly and consisely outlines Basil conversion from the former to the latter. The second set indicates the debate over the position of Christ in the Godhead. A thoroughly enjoyable read if you have interest in the history of theology. Knowledge of Greek is helpful, but not required since the terms are transliterated.

Popularity: 17% [?]

As promised, here are the other two books I mentioned on Friday. The first is The Other Calling: Theology, Intellectual Vocation and Truth (Malden, MA / Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007) by Andrew Shanks, the Canon Theologian for Manchester Cathedral. Shanks identifies the true calling of an intellectual as a form of priesthood — Melchizedek priesthood, to be exact — in what I deem a misguided venture to unite “intellectuals” as a religiously multicultural ‘priesthood of all thinkers’ in which the “priests” come from “every different sort of given religious background,” (p. 1). Though his theology of contemporary priesthood is overly open-minded, his discussions of the moral responsibility of intellectualism are really quite though provoking. He writes in Chapter 11, pp. 199-200:

What is an intellectual: how exactly are we to define the moral vocation inherent in the privileges that derive from a good education and a receptive mind?

It seems to me that there are three basic options: the choice is between (a) various forms of militant intellectual elitism, (b) a perhaps justifiable ‘sophistry’, or (c) priestliness. So, to recapitulate:

• The first option, for militant elitism, involves intellectuals organizing with a view to themselves, as an elite group… Platonist philosophic politics in the Straussian sense is one model of this; the Enlightenment secularism of groups like the Parisian philosophes is another…
• The second option, for sophistry, involves intellectuals who are altogether less clubbable in their specific capacity as intellectuals… Rather, it is simply a principle of inner self-distancing… And most ‘postmodernist’ thinking may also be said to belong to the same category.
• The third option, however, for priestliness, involves intellectuals, so far as possible, completely immersing themselves in the life of a catholic community. When it comes to criticizing the prevailing mindlessness of the ‘world’, in other words, such thinkers do not just inwardly to withdraw from the world… On the contrary, their thinking is none other than an intimate, loyalist critical engagement with the life of a particular moral group, which, in the fullest possible, non-sectarian sense, itself belongs to the world.

He then reveals his empty hermeneutic by assigning this third option to the biblical priesthood of Melchizadek. Odd, I know. If you can get past this entirely misplaced theology of priesthood, Shanks actually has some helpful things to say about the responsibilities of intellectuals in thoughtfully engaging the mindlessness of the world.

I don’t watch the television show Survivor because it seems to me merely to be a revisiting of junior high. I do know, however, that they filmed a season in the incredibly beautiful Vanuatu. I doubt they ever made reference to John G. Paton, missionary whose autobiography is now on my reading list (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2002), originally printed in 1886. The publisher’s blurb:

[Paton] was ordained as a missionary to the New Hebrides in 1858. This group of thirty mountainous islands, so named by Captain Cook, with its unhealthy climate, was then inhabited by savages and cannibals. The first attempt attempt to introduce Christianity to them resulted in John Williams and James Harris being clubbed to death within a few minutes of arriving in 1839. The difficulties that confronted Paton were accentuated by the sudden death of his wife and child within months of their arrival. Against the savagery and the superstition, despite the trials and tragedies, Paton persevered and witnessed the triumph of the gospel in two of these South Sea islands.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Two carts of new books rolled by this afternoon, out of which I have four to highlight. I shall give you two today and two more on Monday (I can’t be late for dinner tonight!).

I first heard Gordon McConville lecture during my M.Div. days when he came to my seminary to visit one of his former students, a former student who happened to be my professor. Most of what he had to say was above me, and probably still is. His God and Earthly Power: An Old Testament Political Theology, Genesis–Kings looks to be a readable history of the political/theology history of Israel from Genesis through Kings.

From the first chapter, “Classical Education in Colonial America,” of Michael Meckler, ed., Classical Antiquity and the Politics of America: From George Washington to George W. Bush (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2006), William Ziobro of Holy Cross College writes:

[Thomas] Jefferson contrasted the prevailing attitudes of Europeans toward ancient languages with those in the nascent United States of America. “The learning of Greek and Latin, I am told, is going into disuse in Europe,” Jefferson wrote. “I know not what their manners and occupations may call for: but it would be very ill-judged in us to follow their examples in this instance.”

He further discussed the political merit of historical studies, especially ancient history, at all levels of public education. “History,” Jefferson wrote, “by apprising them [students] of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experiences of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every guise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views.” — p. 13-14

Popularity: 10% [?]

One of the best parts about my job as a theology librarian is perusing new acquisitions before they reach the stacks. These four books piqued my interest as they crossed my desk this morning:

Scot McKendrick, In a Monastery Library: Preserving Codex Sinaiticus and the Greek Written Heritage. Distributed for the British Library. 48 p., 20 color plates. 8-2/3 x 9-1/2. Written 1600 years ago and discovered in a monastery on Mount Sinai in 1859, the Codex Sinaiticus is one of the earliest codices and for many scholars is the pre-eminent scriptural codex — hence its designation with an Aleph (“first”) in critical apparatuses. This recounting of its history and significance is a short and enjoyable read.

John Mark Mattox, Saint Augustine and the Theory of Just War, Continuum Studies in Philosophy (London/New York: Continuum, 2006). It surprised me to learn that the author is an active Lt. Colonel in the United States Army, only because we don’t tend to equate scholarship with the military. This work on Augustine’s just war theory, however, does not fit that preconception. It is a readable, responsible and informed treatment of Augustine’s approach and conclusions. It will be one to which I refer students for its descriptive accuracy. I wonder if the work’s hesitance to be prescriptive is in any way influenced by his active-duty status in the Army…

Although there is much in Augustine’s theory of just war that the author finds intellectually appealing and of contemporary applicability, this exposition is, nevertheless, intended to be a descriptive interpretation and analysis of his theory, and not necessarily an attempt to advocate his views in all of their particulars. (Preface, x.)

Because the author is a serving officer in the United States Army, it should be noted that the views expressed in this work are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army or any other United States Government entity. (from the Acknowledgements page).

Two thematically arranged collections of essays by the Lutheran scholar Robert D. Preus: Doctrine is Life: Robert D. Preus Essays on Scripture and Doctrine is Life: Essays on Justification and the Lutheran Confessions, both edited by Klemet Preus (St. Louis: Concordia, 2006). I have learned much from Preus’s Theology of Post-Reformation Lutheranism (1985) which I read for a Th.M. seminar on post-reformation developments. These particular volumes intrigue me for their discussions of the hermeneutics of the Formula of Concord (chapter 9, Essays on Scripture and a handful of chapters in Essays on Justification.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Some new books of interest in our library:

From two volume set, The Age of Wars of Religion, 1000-1650: An Encyclopedia of Global Warfare and Civilization (Greenwood Press), under the entry “uniforms”:

“Outside Europe, uniform military dress was more common in this period. Boys inducted into the Janissary Corps, for instance, dressed in all red, including red caps. Fully trained Janissaries wore an exclusive white felt cap called a “Bork” which distinguished them on the battlefield. The Bork had wooden spoon attached, in line with nearly all unit symbolism in a corps where even officer ranks and titles expressed a culinary motif rooted in ritual meal sharing…” 2:886.

The Oxford History of Western Art, ed. Martin Kemp (OUP). From Greece and Rome to Postmodernism, this beautiful collection contains it all. Come, join the throngs of contemporary gnostics looking for hidden symbolism in the world’s great works of art. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of fodder for another book best-selling thriller. Just what was Durer trying to say with his 1525 Dream Vision? If only he would have told us… [Hint: he did.]

Popularity: 29% [?]

Sorry for the lapse in posting. I’ve been redesigning my other site, and with the holidays and all…

I have unusual books to highlight – all of which are new acquisitions in our library and are intended to help improve our weak art history holdings. Why does a theological library want to acquire works on the history of art? Well, because they serve as a visual representation of church history and even historical theology and biblical interpretation.

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Adelheid M. Gealt and George Knox. Domenico Tiepolo: A New Testament. Bloomington: Indiana University Art Museum and Indiana University Press, 2006.
This is the first collected presentation of 313 drawings of scenes from the New Testament by 18th Century Venetian artist Domenico Tiepolo (1727-1804). When Domenico died, the drawings were dispersed among various purchasers. The authors have hunted them down and collected them for us here. This book will accompany an exhibition of many of the original drawings at The Frisk Collection in New York.

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Alessandro Scafi. Mapping Paradise: A History of Heaven on Earth. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.
The first book to show how heaven has been expressed in cartographical form throughout the last 2000 years, this book claims to reveal how thought about heaven has developed over the centuries. Illustrated with more than 190 historic maps and drawings. Scafi touches on the nature of faith, theology, reason, and philosophy.

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Corinna Rossi. The treasures of the Monastery of Saint Catherine. [text by Corinna Rossi; photographs by Araldo de Luca; foreword by Archbishop Damianos of Sinai; translation by Jay Jaseph Hyams]. Vercelli, Italy : White Star ; [New York : Distributed in US and Canada by Rizzoli International], 2006.
Simply a fascinating history of the Monastery of St. Catherine, a monastery founded in the 5th Century when the mother of Constantine funded its establishment on what was believed to be the original site of the burning bursh, this book is beautiful if nothing else. The monastery it chronicles is (I think) a Greek Orthodox monastery, and houses artwork, artifacts, and a library of texts that is second only to the Vatican (does the Codex Sinaiaticus sound familiar?). A fascinating pictorial chronicle of a very odd, but historically important, place.

Popularity: 23% [?]