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Click here for a list of the collections processed in 2008
Ten new collections were opened to the public and twelve existing collections were expanded to include significant new materials. In addition, Paul and Bob worked on a special processing project for the BGEA. Altogether these represented 125 cubic feet of paper documents of various sizes and shapes, as well as over twelve hours of oral history interviews. Besides these, the staff transcribed 293 pages of eighteen other oral history tapes, representing over sixteen hours of material.
The special project for the BGEA involved arranging and describing 13.7 cubic feet of materials. These were from the Montreat office documented his and the BGEA’s involvement in a series of international evangelism meetings: The International Congress on World Evangelization held in Switzerland in 1974, the Consultation of World Evangelization held in Thailand in 1980, the International Conference for Itinerant Evangelists held in the Netherlands in 1983, the Second Congress on World Evangelization held in the Philippines in 1989, and the International Conference for Itinerant Evangelists held in the Netherlands in 1986. The purpose of the project was to provide a concrete example for the Center and the BGEA of what the archival processing of files in the Montreat office would involve.
Student workers Heather and Katherine starting to inventory the hundreds of newspaper scrapbooks received from the BGEA. These were quickly processed into Collection 360. |
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Here are some sample items of interest from the year’s processing...
Collection 136: Memo describing suggested new rules for search and rescue operations by or for MAF pilots and planes, plus a laminated card kept in each plane on what to do if there was a crash. 1979.
Collection 455: Letter to Bill Glass Ministries from the head of Chaplain Services in the Pennsylvania state prison system, outlining the benefits of BGM’s in Pennsylvania’s penitentiaries. 1986.
Collection 628: Brief report prepared by Carl F. H. Henry for the Wheaton College faculty on a lecture and question-and-answer session by theologian Emil Brunner at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois, which Henry attended. Ca. 1947.
Collection 632: Newsletter Ebenezer Echoes, describing the work of this small independent mission in evangelism, training Chinese pastors, and planting churches. July-August 1915.
Simple map of the area activity of the Ebenezer Mission in Honan Province, China., 1915 |
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As in past years, the staff did more reformatting of materials. This meant either digitizing photos, audio recordings, moving image materials (films and videos) and paper documents or microfilming paper documents. While digitizing is not presently a good means for long-term preservation, it does make materials more accessible (including on the Internet). Digitizing also helps ensure that materials in obsolete physical formats (such as wire audio recordings or early video recordings) can still be viewed. Microfilming, on the other hand, is a good format for long-term preservation , since it should remain usable, with easily provided magnification and illumination, for hundreds of years. In 2008, the staff digitized 346 audio recordings, 27 films and videos, and hundreds of photographs and paper records. We also microfilmed box 15 of Collection 81, the Records of Africa Inland Mission.
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