For advanced researchers working in the areas of Biblical hermeneutics and the Early Church, we call your attention to a new database tool on the web. BIBL Index is the online version of the well known, if incomplete, Biblia Patristica.

Just as Biblia Patristica, BIBL provides a working index of Biblical quotations and allusions in Early Christian literature, Greek and Latin. Used as a Scripture index to early church writings, researchers can trace the cited passage(s) to a critical edition like SourcesChrétiennes (at Ireland Library) or within TLG Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (online) and Library of Latin Texts, formerly CETEDOC (online access on the way)

The search interface is quirky, to say the least, but BIBL should prove a valuable tool for advanced users. Please note that as the index itself is not nearly complete, some major figures are NOT included (St. Augustine for one!) as well as some major works by included authors.

Here is a bare bones video to get you started

The sponsors, the folks behind Sources Chrétiennes, do plan further indexing but it appears that their “funding has been suspended” and so this worthy project must be deemed endangered, to say the least. Although BIBL is completely free, and in spite of a funding freeze, registrations are still accepted. Individual registration is required. Those concerned with personal online security (all of us) might consider a separate “dummy” email account (Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) for your registration, as a foil to the spammers.

Enjoy!

Due to the global outbreak of Pandemic H1N1 Influenza (formerly known as Swine Flu) and concerns about the 2009/2010 flu season, Ebsco has made the pertinent influenza information available for free. This site includes more than 50 evidence-based topics including patient education information in 17 languages.

Get scientific and historical information about the virus through dozens of eBooks (encyclopedias). You’ll find hundreds of authoritative articles about the swine flu, other strains of influenza, emerging diseases, pandemic preparedness and other issues related to public health.

Global Issues in Context from Gale is updated daily. This portal offers an in-depth expert overview; 279 perspectives (editorials) from international publications; 191 podcasts; 17,000+ news articles; and a link to the World Health Organization’s pandemic alert status. If this one doesn’t work the first time around, use your browsers back button and click it again.

ebrary has created a publicly available research center featuring a highly interactive, searchable database of documents pertaining to the H1N1 influenza pandemic. It contains a growing selection of reports, papers, newsletters, posters, and other important materials from government agencies and other trusted sources.

Proquest, however, is still causing problems.  You can always try a manual import until this problem is fixed.

For the next couple of months, Ireland Library will be highlighting our (growing) collection of holy cards. Both display cases in the Reference Room are exhibiting selections, from different eras, countries, and styles, of some of the interesting holy cards that have come to the library (or were found in returned books) over the decades.

Since this essentially uncollected collection was written up in the UST Daily Bulletin and especially the St Paul Pioneer Press in February and March, several dozen more cards have been given to the library, many of them fine examples from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Some of these choice “new additions” are in the display cases right now — the rest will eventually become part of the online exhibition mounted on the web (a way of displaying the cards that has turned out to be quite popular).

To find out more about holy cards, we recommend this fascinating web article (from the Religion News Service) about collecting the cards. It presents a concise, informative “survey” of this popular pious art form as well as profiling one of the serious collectors.

Be sure to come by Ireland Library and enjoy seeing the cards “in the flesh.”

Films on Demand is the name of the database that hosts these films.  Current subjects represented include psychology, history, literature, languages, engineering, business, art, sociology, sciences and more.

These videos are streamed over the internet in several formats, and are available for individual or classroom viewing via the computers’ browser.  You can locate these films from the link above, via the Libraries catalog, or on the Media Resources Collection home page. If you have questions or feedback about whether this service should be expanded, please contact our Media Resources Librarian, Cindy Badilla-Melendez, at cbadillame@stthomas.edu, or 651-962-5464.

For background information on the Jews in the Middle Ages, take a look at this essay from the Companion to the Medieval World in Blackwell Reference Online.

The concert will feature, among other instruments,  a darbuka.  Learn more about it from Oxford Music Online or listen to it being played using Smithsonian Global Sound.

For those unfamiliar with  Sephardim, the Encyclopedia Judaica offers a nice essay.

More about the Sacred Arts Festival.

Ron Hansen is the Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J., Professor in the Arts and Humanities at Santa Clara University. His novels frequently pair history with morality tales as well as Catholic themes of unconditional love, redemption and resurrection.

His novels include The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (finalist for the National Book Award and PEN/Faulkner Award), Mariette in Ecstasy (adapted for film and stage), and Exiles. Hanson has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Lyndhurst Foundation as well as the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

In 2007 Hansen was ordained a permanent deacon of the Catholic Church, and in May he was inducted to the College of Fellows at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, Calif.