Drew University
From the Methodist Librarian’s blog: I spent many of my childhood and teen years living in a church parsonage. A parsonage is a dwelling place reserved for the minister and her/his family. Some parsonages are stand alone buildings while some are directly attached to the church. Ive lived in both contexts. While researching Methodists and [...]
Dr. Kenneth E. Rowe, Emeritus Methodist Librarian and Emeritus Professor of Church History, was honored at a reception on September 13 celebrating the publication of The Methodist Experience in America, Volume 1: A History (Abingdon Press, 2010). The book is a companion to the previously published Volume 2: A Sourcebook (2000). Dr. Robert Williams, General [...]
While working through several boxes of Drew manuscripts I came across this fascinating letter from 1804 signed by John Wesley Jarvis. Jarvis (1780-1840) was the nephew of Methodist founder John Wesley. At the age of 5, he and his family arrived in the United States from England. During the early 19th century he painted several [...]
The more I use a keyboard the less I enjoy writing script. It takes a lot of work. And, the less I write with my hands the more my handwriting looks the same as it did in my first grade writing projects at Monroe Elementary School in Conneaut, Ohio. But, I still appreciate the written [...]
On Thursday I delivered an additional 85 texts to Internet Archive located at Princeton Theological Seminary. Internet Archive has a scanning station located in a dark, cave-like room at the library with six scanning machines where employees (many with headphones) digitize print texts into digital format. Instantly text on paper pages move to e-text and [...]
This week we’ve uncovered two manuscript diaries written between 1838 and 1861. The diaries belonged to Walter Peter Jayne (1810-1894). Jayne was a New York City printer and missionary hired to set up a print shop in Monrovia, Liberia for the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. U.S. Methodists had been in Liberia as [...]
Take a virtual tour of the United Methodist Archives and History Center and Drew University Special Collections. Deborah Schiff, creator of a blog called “hereandthere123.blogspot.com,” interviewed and filmed staff of the Methodist Library, University Archives, and Preservation Department this winter. The result is a fascinating look behind the scenes at library collections on the Drew [...]
By Christopher J. Anderson, Ph.D., Methodist Librarian One of the joys of working in an archive is finding hidden historical gems among the piles of papers, rows of boxes, and vaults of film. Recently, I located one such item while analyzing 16-mm films in one of our lower vaults. The black and white film was [...]
A gift of $65,000 has been received that enables the University to retain architects and engineers to plan for major changes in the Methodist Center. Compact shelving will be added to the second floor, making it possible for all special collections, scattered among the library buildings, to reside in an ideal climate-controlled environment with appropriate [...]