Thursday, 25 May 2006
Received on Wednesday : Reel-to-reel tapes by Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer. I hope to begin cataloguing these very soon, in order to determine whether there might be unique items among this donation. Most of Dr. Schaeffer's tapes have been remastered to CD by Sound Word Associates and are available through that source.
Posted on Wednesday : A short article from 1858 titled "A Pastor's Farewell to his Study". This is excerpted from a copy of The Central Presbyterian that was recently donated to the Historical Center by a ruling elder at the Hixson Presbyterian Church. Our thanks to him for this donation.

Thursday, 18 May 2006
Processing has been completed today on the Oswald T. Allis Collection.
This collection consists of materials gathered by the staff of the PCA Historical Center, and includes examples of early pamphlets authored by Dr. Allis, along with offprints from The Princeton Theological Review and other published works.
[Dr. Allis's papers, meaning those materials that were personally in his possession, items such as his correspondence, any unpublished writings, manuscript drafts, etc., are to the best of our knowledge located in the archives at the Montgomery Library on the campus of Westminster Theological Seminary.]
Various uses of a word :
As a side note, the term collection can be used several ways as an archival term. It can denote the entire holdings of a given institution, or it can be used in reference to particularly large groupings, whether records or manuscripts [Remember also that organizations produce records and people produce papers or manuscripts].
Another use of the term collection is to designate a group of materials gathered by someone who is not also the creator of those materials. A baseball card collection might be an easy illustration here. It is this sense of the term that is here used to describe the Oswald T. Allis Collection, as a gathered group of materials, gathered in this case by the staff of the PCA Historical Center.
As materials are donated to the Historical Center from time to time, sometimes in odd lots or without other ties to a particular set of records or papers, those materials may become candidates for gathered collections. When a sufficient number of such items has been gathered for an individual or organization, a collection can be created. In many instances these gathered collections will provide a convenient format for presenting materials in biographical or organizational context, and in some cases materials that are either unique or scarce.
A number of such gathered collections have been assembled and I hope to fully process and post information on them throughout the summer. Among the number are collections for Benjamin B. Warfield, Cornelius Van Til, Henry A. Boardman, Samuel Miller, Jacob Jones Janeway, Harold Samuel Laird, and others.


Wednesday, 17 May 2006
Back to site maintenance a bit today. I repaired a number of broken links, including :
/images/bpcsynod1942.jpg
/images/dunkerley.jpg
/sermons/zeph.html
/sermons/song/