The Rabaul and Vunapope Mission Press in New Britian

Posted on 2017-05-15 by David Whelchel

You never know what you will find in a box of old books. Most of the items were ready to go to Goodwill on the off chance that the old books would find a good home rather than be shredded. Picking up one small volume with a cloth cover that was almost detached I looked at the title. I found it strange that while it looked like I could read it, it was just not right.

A find from the bottom of the box

Prompted by the unexpected, I dove further into the mass of discarded, damp books, many lacked their covers, their signatures falling apart. Soon at the bottom of another box I came up with a second volume.

The second nugget

On looking closer at the title pages, I was surprised to find that these small books, lost amongst the rest, had an interesting story. They were printed at a small mission press on the island of New Britain in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s.

The mission press survived different colonial occupations and two world wars. How these two small volumes made it to eastern Washington is a mystery but they open a window to another place and time.

A Song to the Creator

Posted on 2017-04-15 by David Whelchel

Today our featured book is “A Song to the Creator: Traditional Arts of Native American Women of the Plateau” edited by Lillian A. Ackerman, Adjunct Associate Professor of Anthropology at Washington State University.

This volume was produced for the exhibit by the same name at the Washington State University Fine Arts Museum. Both the book and the exhibit provides an overview of Native American crafts and the people who perpetuate their tradition in the Plateau region of eastern Washington and southwest Canada. Native Plateau people participated in the providing items and their personal stories for the exhibit.

We were fortunate to be on the organizing committee for this exhibit and participated in selecting items and as editorial support for the exhibition volume. One of the copies in our collection is signed by the majority of the participants in the exhibit. The experience of working with these individuals was a rare opportunity.

DLWA Call Number: E78.N78 S65 1996

Worldcat: Link

Title: A Song to the Creator: Traditional Arts of Native American Women of the Plateau
Language: English
Setting: Contemporary Pacific Northwest Native American Plateau people

–DLW

The Paradise or Garden of the Holy Fathers

Posted on 2017-03-15 by David Whelchel

Fragment of part of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Apophthegmata Patrum)

Today our featured book is the two volume set “The paradise or garden of the holy fathers : being histories of the Anchorites, recluses, monks, coenobites and ascetic fathers of the deserts of Egypt between A.D. CCL and A.D. CCCC circiter” compiled by Athanasius archbishop of Alexandria, Palladius bishop of Helenopolis, Saint Jerome and others.

In 1888, while on a visit to the ancient city of Nineveh, current day Mōṣul, Wallis Budge was shown a very ancient (13th or 14th century) Syriac manuscript of the Book of Paradise by the seventh century monk Ânân-Îshô. Upon examination Budge found that this volume contained a collection of works on the history of Christian monasticism in Egypt. Given permission to have a copy made he returned to the British Museum and translated the works into the two volume set found in our library. Truly an adventure worthy of Indiana Jones.

DLWA Call Number: BX2734 .A619 1907

Worldcat: Link

Title: The paradise or garden of the holy fathers
Language: English
Setting: Third Century North Africa

–DLW

From the Library

A peek into the DLWA Library

Author Archives: David Whelchel

The Rabaul and Vunapope Mission Press in New Britian

A Song to the Creator

The Paradise or Garden of the Holy Fathers