Of Disasters, preparedness and wisdom

After a disaster--be it national, persona, or both--occurs the time for finger wagging is over.  I am not going to repeat all the places for helping with Haiti as so many blogs, tweets, and newsletters have posted suggestions for everyone.  One of the persons at ACL posted information about the condition of libraries in Haiti.  Please keep this situation in your prayers and consider what you or your library can do to assist.

Here's the information from Dorothy Bowen who works at  Eastern Kentucky University.
"Good afternoon.


Although this is not about theological libraries, I though it might be of interest to you. It was sent to my daughter who has been evacuated from Haiti along with my two grandchildren. Her husband is still at Quisqueya Christian School in Port au Prince.

I am sending it pretty much as received. "Here is a brief note on the situation in Haïti.

We have a contact with Patrick Tardieu who is an archivist in the oldest library in Port au Prince, Bibliothèque des Pères du Saint

Esprit. Fortunately, he's alive and flighted yesterday to Canada. The first information we have are:

- Saint Martial College in which there is the Bibliothèque Haïtiennedes pères du saint esprit collapsed

- The St Louis de Gonzague library building would be ok but very weakened

- The national Library collapsed, at least a part of it

- Most of the university libraries collapsed too

Those libraries gathered very old collections (from the 16th century).

Several manuscripts were brought by the missionaries who came fromEurope. Other have been collected in the Caraibs (notably,

publications on the haitian revolutions, transcriptions of vaudou oral traditions,personal documents from the 18th centuries).

We think it's urgent to run an international campaign for saving thesecollections, at least in France, the US and Canada. We have to creatededicated funds to launch the campaign and raise money. On our side,
we are already in contact with the French IFLA committee (International
Federation of Library Association), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
(through its agency CulturesFrance) and the culture ministry. In theUS we will work with professor Laurent Dubois, Duke University, who has a good knowledge of these collections and is ready to rally the
archivists and the historians community. Patrick Tardieu, who is in
Canada now will help us too, to have a better knowledge of thesituation.

We have to prepare, for next week to :

1/ Open a dedicated fundraising account at least in the US and Francefor the operation (not only focused on the emergency of saving these collections but also on the effort of rebuilding in the next months)

2. Work with organizations such as IFLA, UNESCO and the FOKAL
Foundation (its director, Elizabeth Pierre Louis, who we well know isstill missing for the moment) in order to avoid the redundancies.

3/ Prepare to form a team of curator, archivists, historians andlogistics coordinators who would be ready to go there in the nextweeks or months.

For the moment we have good contacts in Guadeloupe. We might need tofind places in Canada and in the US. People are mobilizing there and could prepare rapidly to host the collections for a while. Patrick
Tardieu told me that we maybe could host them in other places in haiti if the roads
are ok. We'll check up on this point next week. Our principal enemy will be the rain from now. The collections could be destroyed forever.Most of these pieces are unique.

We'll have more info hopefully next week on the collections and thesituation there. Don't hesitate to share the news you'd have.
Thank you for your mobilization. BSF sent a first communiqué today in memory of Mamadou Bah, a good friend of us, who worked at the UN in Port au Prince.

You'll find it at this adress: http://mim.io/15f12?fe=1
We have no news from Nixon Calixte who was coordinating the University Libraries network in Haiti."

Dorothy N. Bowen, Ph. D.

Epiphany Day

A friend e-mailed about this and I want to add my wishes as well to all who remember that the Twelfth Day of Christmas is a cause for feasting.  Fortunately, we had a small celebration here--chili and twelve bean soup. Just enough to take the chill off these January glooms



 And we talked about the Three Magi who came and inadvertently set off a series of events which led to Herod's slaughter of children and the Holy Family fleeing to Egypt.  In a sense Herod had an epiphany of a different kind:  "a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience." 
Reference.com identifies the Season for Epiphany 
 
I don't have a specific book or reference work to introduce here.  I have been reading numerous posts about the books people have read through the last year.
I wish you well in this season and many epiphanies.  

Of Creches and cradles

Tis the season for manger scenes, nativity sets or creches.  This came to mind from the article in Get Religion on the White House Creche. The picture which accompanied the article shows a magnificent creche.
The University of Dayton has a page which sets the historic background of nativity scenes from around the world. Here are some photographs of creches from Guideposts  We have a manger here but it's a little more humble, somewhat similar to this.  Lots of nativity scenes are  enactments which are similar to the indoors Christmas pageants. While Christmas Story is celebrated every year as a classic, don't forget another classic, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever with the Herdman kids which as made into a movie about the same time as the other film 

Firsts
First day in December
First snow of the Season
First week of Advent

I have other links to calendars and preChristmas activities.  Just search my blog

Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Giving
Since I blog very infrequently -- almost as badly as the Wittenburg Door's publication rate--I have very few posts around Thanksgiving.  Many churches and other organizations focus on food baskets at this time, and rightly so.  I didn't count, but many of the food donations and volunteer opportunities at this time are related to local churches or charitable organiztions.  The links at the top are indicative of activies that start around this time.
 Besides Thanksgiving, Black Friday has been going on for decades and is now joined by Cyber Monday. Quiet revolutions against the commercialisation of Christmas have been underway for years as well and more will be included later about that.  Since many of us start planning Christmas shopping at Thanksgiving feasts, it's not too early to become aware of alternatives which would not only bring a better spirit to Christmas but also to Thanksgiving. 

World Religions A to Z
While I have been busy with instruction and other reference duties, one of my colleagues, in anticipation of a class at the seminary, has purchased a variety of reference books related to world religions.
These include the A to Z Guides from Scarecrow Press.
The A to Z of New Religious Movements by George D. Chryssides
The A to Z of Islam by Ludwig W. Adamec
The A to Z of Lutheranism by Gunther Gassman
Another series is the Historical Dictionaries or Religions, Philosophies, and Movements also from Scarecrow Press.
The Historical Dictionary of the Salvation Army edited by Major Hojn G. Merritt
The Historical Dictionary of Judaism 2nd ed. by Norman Solomon

Now I've seen--err played Everything. [via]