Duke Divinity School Library

Learn a New Language with Byki

Hannah Rozear — Fri, 18 May 2012 16:25:12 +0000

Would you like to improve your Spanish or brush up on your Luxembourgish this summer? You are in luck…because the library subscribes to Byki Online, an online language learning system that provides instructional materials for 70+ languages. The first time you use Byki will you need to create a new user account with a username and password. You can access Byki here. Byki is just one of many language-learning resources you can find in the library. Discover many others by checking out this comprehensive Foreign Language Learning guide.

Divinity Library Summer Hours

Hannah Rozear — Tue, 08 May 2012 19:46:21 +0000

With the exception of the Memorial Day (May 28) and July 4th holidays, the Divinity library will be open Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm throughout the summer. The library will be closed on Saturdays and Sundays. Regular fall semester hours resume on August 27, 2012.

The library welcomes the general public to use this facility from 8-4:30pm, Monday-Friday.

Class of 2012: Take the library with you!

Andrew Keck — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:52:44 +0000

The Duke University Libraries and the Duke University Alumni Association have worked together to provide access to a set of online resources available to all registered Duke alumni including the full ATLA Religion Database. Also, the Duke Alumni Card (mailed to you after graduation) allows the cardholder book check out privileges at Perkins System Libraries and the Divinity School Library as well as a number of other discounts and benefits. Finally, your Duke email will continue to be active for a year past graduation during which time, we encourage you to establish a Duke alumni forwarding address.

Religion Data and Statistics – New Research Guide

Hannah Rozear — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 16:20:42 +0000

How many United Methodist congregations are there in Durham county? What does survey data reveal about the American public’s view of life after death? What are the major religious groups in Bahrain, how do these numbers compare to Qatar? Data and statistics can provide valuable insight into research questions on a wide variety of topics in religion. The Divinity School Library is pleased to promote a new guide on religion data and statistics to help you discover the major resources that collect and publish data on religion. The guide includes resources categorized by: congregation, denomination, international data & statistics, public opinion/poll data, and tools for mapping and GIS. Want to learn more about these resources? Ask a librarian for help!

Update: The new Religious Congregations & Membership Study 2010 was released on May 1, 2012. The study is a county-by-county enumeration of religious bodies in the United States. You can explore the reports by region through the ARDA. A quick overview of the study can be found here.

RIP Encyclopædia Britannica

Hannah Rozear — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:14:28 +0000

Encyclopædia Britannica announced last week that it will no longer publish printed volumes of its 244-year-old encyclopedia. The encyclopedia will continue its publication online with the goal of “delivering the most accurate content available to a broad range of users around the world” (explains Dale Hoiberg, Editor-in-Chief, Encyclopædia Britannica). Some have hailed this news as evidence that online nemesis, Wikipedia, has slain the encyclopedia Goliath.

Wikipedia’s crowd-sourced model of publication makes it an innovative, unpretentious¹, expansive, and up-to-date reference source (watch real-time Wikipedia edits here). At the same time, however, the anonymity of article authorship raises red flags–as evidenced by the frequent warning messages in Wikipedia: “this article needs additional citations for verification” or “the examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.”² In academia, authority still matters. The EB article on “Christianity” lists its contributors along with their credentials (e.g. Duke Professor Geoffrey Wainwright is a contributor to the Ecumenism section of the article), while Wikipedia’s editors are listed only by their IP addresses or usernames. Pastorwayne or Funion987 may well be world-renowned biblical scholars, but there’s just no way to know.

As general encyclopedias, Wikipedia and EB face the daunting challenge of organizing the world’s knowledge in its entirety. More specialized encyclopedias abound in the Duke libraries, focusing on religion-related topics that range from the Dead Sea Scrolls to hair to UFO-based religions.³ A few encyclopedia classics in the Divinity Library include the Encyclopedia of Religion, the Encyclopædia of Islam, the New Catholic Encyclopedia, and Religion Past & Present: Encyclopedia of Theology and Religion (RPP) (a translation of a classic German work, RGG) … the list goes on. Want to find out about other fun or interesting reference books? Ask a librarian for help!

¹Speaking of pretensions, someone needs to tell EB that using the ligature “æ” in Encyclopædia Britannica is just a tad pretentious.
²The former appearing on the Ecumenism Wikipedia article, the latter appearing on the article for the Catholic Church.
³See: Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Divinity); article on “religion and hair” in the Encyclopedia of Hair (Lilly); Encyclopedic Sourcebook of UFO Religions (Divinity).

Introducing (drum roll, please) the new KIC scanner!

Hannah Rozear — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 13:43:46 +0000

The library is pleased to announce that the KIC scanner is now fully operational. The scanner is located across from the current periodicals shelves (in the spot where the old scanning station used to be). The KIC scanner has an intuitive touch-screen interface which allows you to scan books, images, and documents. The KIC scanner is currently set up to save to flash drive only. For further instruction on how to use the KIC scanner refer to: the Help Desk Guide (located next to the scanner), go to the Guide tab on the KIC scanner touchscreen, or ask a library staff member for help!

Quick Tips:

If you want to capture two pages in one image, select ‘Change settings’ (top right) and set to ‘Single Images’
In order to complete your 1st scan, you will need to respond to a copyright page. After that, simply touch ‘Scan’ or use the foot pedal to continue scanning
You can save your file in a variety of file formats. Be forewarned, that the ‘searchable PDFs’ option will take longer to save. Choose ‘Quick PDF’, if you’re in a hurry

Divinity School Library Spring Break Hours

Hannah Rozear — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:39:03 +0000

The Divinity School Library will be closed Saturday-Sunday, March 3-4 and open limited hours during the week of Spring Break (March 5-9, 8:00am to 5:00pm) before resuming regular hours on Saturday, March 10. Don’t forget to reset your clocks for Daylight Saving Time on Sunday, March 11!

New Exhibit: Haitian Stations of the Cross

Hannah Rozear — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:31:26 +0000

You are invited to view The Stations of the Cross, created by Haitian artist John Sylvestri, in the library’s reference room during Lent 2012, beginning February 22. Read the description of the stations here; printed copies will be available in the reference room. The Arts and Aesthetics Committee sponsors the exhibit.

Pictured here: Jesus is Condemned to Death (1st Station)

Into the Open: transitions in journal publishing

Andrew Keck — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 21:19:52 +0000

Please join us February 24, 2012 at 1:30PM in Westbrook 0012 for moderated discussion on open access journal publishing that will focus on core questions about open access and journal publishing: Who is doing open access? What does it take to start a new open access journal? When is open access appropriate for an existing journal? Where can a journal find infrastructural support? Why open access? The discussion is open to current journal editors, authors, readers, publishers, librarians, and others interested in scholarly communication.

Jewish Annotated NT

Hannah Rozear — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:41:47 +0000

*NEW* addition to the reference collection: the first-ever complete version of the New Testament edited and annotated by Jewish scholars. Co-editors Amy-Jill Levine (Vanderbilt Univ.) and Marc Zvi Brettler (Brandeis Univ.) describe the work as: “designed to allow all readers to understand what the texts of the New Testament meant within their social, historical, and religious context,” (xii). The annotations also serve to bridge connections between the New Testament and later Jewish (especially rabbinic) literature. Contributing Jewish scholars also set out to contextualize some of the difficult and controversial passages that may have prevented some Jewish readers from approaching the text. In addition to in-text annotations, this work features explanatory essays, such as ““The Concept of Neighbor in Jewish and Christian Ethics” and “Paul in Jewish Thought”. Related articles about the publication can be found here: New York Times and Washington Times.

Brettler, Marc Zvi, and Amy-Jill Levine, eds. The Jewish Annotated New Testament : New Revised Standard Version. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Call Number: Ref. BS2091.5.A1 2011 O8