"We Gather Together"

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal on the history of the Thanksgiving hymn "We Gather Together" noted that the hymn, originally brought to the U.S. by Dutch settlers, got its "big break" in American popularity when it was included in the 1935 Methodist Hymnal (a joint production of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Methodist Episcopal Church South, and Methodist Protestant Church before their 1939 merger). Other mainline Protestant hymnals soon followed suit.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Our latest exhibit: Wesley goes digital

Are You Ready for Your Close-Up, John Wesley? Digitizing a Special Collection Methodist Center Gallery, Fall 2005

On display in this exhibit are a selection of digital images representing items from among nearly 300 Drew-owned manuscripts (at left is a letter from John Wesley to Thomas Rankin, written January 22, 1767). This extensive collection of letters by John and Charles Wesley and other members of the Wesley family was digitized with a $5000 grant from the American Theological Library Association's Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative, Phase Three. The exhibit also includes an explanation of the digitization process. We sometimes think that "everything" is available on the Internet, but have you ever wondered how you create digital images? Or where you store them? How much does it cost? How long does it take? Your questions are about to be answered! Come visit the exhibit in person, or check out our exhibit brochure.

Inclusively covering the period 1719-1887, the Wesley correspondence and poetry shed light not only on the history and development of Methodism, but also life in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain, and are of use to both scholars and religious researchers with interests in Wesley studies and British history. With the support of the Luce Foundation, the ATLA Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative provides a freely available, web-searchable, central repository of digital resources contributed by participating libraries. All the resources in the CDRI database, which include images and text from many centuries of Christian history, are public-domain and available for use in classroom, church, and other settings free of charge.

Also participating in this round of grants were libraries at Princeton, Vanderbilt, Boston University, Andover Newton, Southern Methodist University, Ohio State, and Southwestern Baptist. Visit ATLA's website for more details about the other schools who participated in previous phases, and the resources available in the CDRI database.

Stay tuned: I'll post some more images soon!

Welcome to the Methodist Library blog

...highlighting news and other interesting tidbits from Drew University's Methodist Center. The Center is a cooperative endeavor between the Drew University Library and the archives of the United Methodist Church (for more on the UMC's archives and the activities of the General Commission on Archives and History, see the General Commission website.)

I hope to post here about once a week with happenings (exhibits, receptions, new services for our users, new books and manuscripts acquired, and the occasional booksale); intriguing or little-known facts from Methodist history; or glimpses behind-the-scenes at the Center (who are we? what do we do all day? and why can't you check out books from here, anyway?).

General thoughts and comments are always welcome. If you have a specific reference question, send it to me via email for the quickest response...unless you want to post it here and let your fellow commenters have at it....