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 […]
Internship Expectations
I am currently in my last semester as a Graduate student at Pratt Institute’s School of Information and Library Sciences program. I am also pursuing an Advanced Certificate in Museum Librarianship. I think each time I think about this being my last semester I get a little sad. I’m incredibly happy that I will be […]
The John Dunbar Papers: Writings from the Western Frontier (1834-1836)
On May 5, 1834, Rev. John Dunbar set out with two other men for a missionary exploration of the unknown region beyond the Rocky Mountains, on behalf of the First Presbyterian Church of Ithaca, NY. The mission was to be called "The Oregon Mission." Eighteen days later, however, when the men arrived in St. Louis, […]
Isabel Chapin Barrows: Love and Tragedy in the 19th Century
It was late summer. The year was 1862. William Wilberforce Chapin, a young seminary student at Andover, writes to Miss Katie Belle Hayes in New Hampshire: Dear Miss Hayes. When I bode you goodbye at Andover I was expecting to spend the first week of vacation in making a tour through Vermont and Canada. Therefore […]
Smug Musings and Humble Landing Places
Sometimes when I am processing archival materials, I muse smugly to myself, “Oh, you silly people from the early 1900’s. Whatever were you thinking! How grand it is to live in more enlightened times.” At times, such lofty musings are founded, say the time when I opened up a folder housing pictures of missionaries in […]
Post-Internship Thoughts
On the first day of my internship at Burke, Brigette, my internship supervisor, asked if I would write a blog post discussing what I expect from my internship and the overall experience. Would I want to be a processing archivist once the next few months were over? Not having had any experience processing a collection […]
Metropolitan Archivist
The Metropolitan Archivist is the newsletter published by the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York. The Luce Project is an update featured on page 26 of the Winter 2013 issue – please take a look! […]
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 […]
Burke Friends Newsletter, Winter 2012/2013
Please see our Winter 2012/2013 edition of the Newsletter! Exciting information about the Library Director search, as well as interesting articles from staff and students. […]
State Council of Churches and Wrap-Up
I want to put in a quick plug for the collection that I just finished…on my LAST day of my internship here at the Burke Archives. Then I'll do a little wrap up of my time here and what I learned. WAB: State Council of Churches Records, 1943 – 1974. Abstract: Regional ecumenical and interfaith […]