We are pleased to announce the latest update in the ongoing inter-institutional endeavor to create the Katie Geneva Cannon Digital Collection. This momentous project aims to make Dr. Cannon’s archives and papers, which span from her elementary school days through her later career, publicly available online. With this digital collection nearly complete, users can […]
Category: Burke Staff
Religious Communities in the Christian Tradition: a New Exhibit
Three weeks ago, the staff of The Burke Library were delighted to welcome faculty, students, and staff from Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University to an opening reception marking the start of a new academic year. As part of the festivities, we were also very pleased to open a new exhibit on the first […]
Mapping the Stacks
Have you ever gone looking for a book in the Burke circulating collections, only to be met with a shelf so tightly crammed that retrieving the text you need feels like tug of war? Books can crowd! There never seems to be enough room! You’ve seen it in your homes, in your offices, in […]
Looking Back & Looking Forward
As many will know, in September the Burke Library reopened its physical spaces and in-person services for affiliate students, faculty, and staff. It has been wonderful to welcome everyone back into the reading room, study spaces, and stacks. For the previous 17 months, though our physical facilities remained closed to patrons, the Burke staff continued to […]
“Gebetsanliegen” in the Catalog: a Metadata Mystery
Online catalogs make it possible to find specific materials from anywhere in the world— but what happens when an item doesn’t have its full title in its catalog metadata? (How would you find The Great Gatsby, if the title was just “The” in the catalog? You might try searching for terms like “Great” and […]
Virtual Teaching with Rare Materials in the Era of COVID-19
Over the last year, much has changed at The Burke library. The era of COVID-19 has brought about a host of challenges, particularly the ongoing effort to connect students with our magnificent collection of rare materials. The Burke is currently closed to visitors, but manuscripts, rare books, and archival material are always richer and […]
Alone in the Stacks
The stacks at the Burke felt like a respite from the hectic outside world- every class period, every meeting I was in, every personal interaction started with a sly smile- each “how are you?” was performative in the way that everyone knows: that such a simple question cannot be answered in the midst of […]
Newfound Letter from a young Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Mahatma Gandhi
The Burke Library staff recently received a warm and exciting message from our friend Prof. Clifford Green, the Bonhoeffer Chair Scholar at Union Theological Seminary. He wrote eagerly telling us of the recent discovery in New Delhi of a previously unknown letter mailed to the famous resistance leader Mohandas Gandhi, sent in earnest by none […]
The Eckley Sermons: a Manuscript Cataloging Mystery
*NOTE: The Burke Library is currently closed and personnel are working from home due to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak (see Columbia’s COVID-19 guidance page for more information and consult the Your Libraries Online portal for increased access to e-resources during this time). We are sharing this post, written a few weeks ago, harkening back to […]
The Black Theology Papers Project | guest blogger Heather J. Ketchum
NOTE: The following was written by Union Theological Seminary student Heather J. Ketchum (MDiv 2020). Her brief bio is below. ———- This week, the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature convene in San Diego for the annual AAR/SBL conference, and this year, I was pleased to collaborate with faculty and librarians at […]