I am thrilled to be working as an archives student assistant at the Burke Library. I find it auspicious to be starting a new job, at my new school, in my new city, on my 31st birthday. What will this year hold for me? I am excited to find out! This begins my 9th year […]
Art Deco Design in a Cardboard Box
Despite being a lifelong patron and admirer of libraries, my own academic and professional background was not in the library field. Originally focused on working in the Arts, I earned an bachelors in art history and continued working as an artist myself, recently turning my attention to creating digital art. Additionally, I spent many years […]
Union’s Other Dynasty
The shadow and impact of Charles Augustus Briggs still hangs over Union Theological Seminary and the collections at the Burke Library. Charles, as well as his family members Emilie Grace, Julia and Alanson Tuthill, all have collections at the Burke, and many other faculty and staff collections contain records showing how the Briggs’ heresy trial […]
#LoveInAction
I started at the Burke Library a little over a year ago. Not coming from a theological background, I was a little intimidated. However I quickly saw how my background in public history and public services could help do effective outreach to promote usage of the amazing materials in our special collections by Union […]
Frederic Mayer Bird, Hymnologist
In my last post, I wrote about how I came to the Burke Library. For this post, I’d like to talk about how one of the collections I processed came here–and how coincidental it was that it was assigned to me. My first task on being given the Frederic Mayer Bird papers was to research […]
Libraries and Our True Interests
Librarians of all stripes are regularly asked about the prospects for the library in the 21st century, often some version of “won’t libraries go away now that everything is available online?” It is a reasonable question given the extent to which our lives are increasingly characterized and shaped by the use of digital tools. What […]
Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus- Christian Feminism Today Records
by Yulia Lazarev and Ruth Tonkiss Cameron Starting from a caucus of the Evangelicals for Social Action in 1973, the Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus (EEWC) is a non-profit international organization formally founded in 1975, which has been working to educate and support Christian feminists. The organization contains both women and men who believe that […]
First Day at Burke
I come to Columbia University Libraries this summer as a Career Enhancement Program Fellow. The program, administered by the Association of Research Libraries, offers library students from backgrounds underrepresented in the profession the opportunity to work and be mentored in a member library. This internship, coming as it does toward the end of my graduate […]
A Hallway of Boxes: First Day with the Shinn Papers
Earlier today I was introduced to this hallway of boxes, the contents of which will occupy me for the next several months. Everything inside of them once belonged to the Rev. Dr. Roger Shinn, alumnus and professor emeritus at Union Theological Seminary. It will be my task to process Shinn’s papers, sorting and cataloging and […]
What is Past is Prologue: Luce Project Update
“Just as personal identity is anchored in a strong historical sense, so is our professional identity – both come from the ability to experience…continuity. Surely if you have nothing to look backward to, and with pride, you have nothing to look forward to with hope.” Barbara L. Craig, 1992[i] I have hung up my hat […]