1st Day – New Intern Posting

Today is my first day at the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary as an archival intern. First days are always exciting and nerve racking. What will the new desk I am working at look like? What if my new boss doesn’t like my outfit? What if I trip on that spiral staircase mentioned in […]

Read More…

Something Fun – MRL May 1961

The Quintessential Librarian! While most people today do not get to see the room pictured in the above image, staff and student workers are well-acquainted with it. The Missionary Research Library, created in 1914, moved to Union Theological Seminary in 1929 after financial difficulties became too much to bear. MRL rented space from Union in […]

Read More…

A Selection of MRL Pamphlets

Recently while researching for MRL10: American Home Missionary Society Records, I had to pull some material from the MRL pamphlet collections.  The MRL pamphlet collection, which has been individually item-level cataloged and is available in CLIO, contains over 30,000 missionary reports and other publications. Many of these pamphlets are primary source materials and can often […]

Read More…

Unity in the Midst of Diversity

I have finished processing my very first ever archival collection, the American Bilateral Conversations Records in the William Adams Brown Ecumenical Archives Group.  When I started I didn’t have much of an idea of what most of that meant.  I had no idea what a bilateral conversation entailed and I was only faintly familiar with […]

Read More…

Foreign Missions Conference of North America (FMCNA) Records – Now Available

Little Boxes in the Archives – Completed FMCNA The records for the Foreign Missions Conference of North America (FMCNA), covering the years 1894-1968, are now available! This large MRL12 collection totaling 68 boxes (30.50 linear feet) comprise materials documenting inception and institutional proceedings of the organization. Established to create dialogue between missions-based action committees confronting […]

Read More…

The Messy Truth about Foreign Missions

Foreign missions.  It's a pretty unpopular concept these days.  Missionaries are associated with all the damage wrought by the project of subjugation, exploitation, displacement, and genocide of native peoples and cultures across the world.  The criticisms are well-founded. Retrospect is a tricky thing though.  History is often tainted by a touch of arrogance and a […]

Read More…

Why the Library is Actually the Most Exciting Place in the World

I’ll admit that prior to getting my job in archives at the Burke Library, the extent of my familiarity with archives was based on some combination of the following: Obi Wan Kenobi’s search for the mysterious planet Kamino in the Jedi Archives in Star Wars Episode II, Tom Hank’s struggle to get into the Vatican […]

Read More…

The Why

Now that you know a little more about the MRL and WAB collections, as well as the Luce Foundation, I thought it would be useful to explain the reason behind needing this project in the first place. Most, if not all, archives and libraries have what we call "backlog." Our collections are continually growing: we […]

Read More…