News & Events at the Darling Library

Shared Heritage

2012-01-30T09:14:00.000-08:00

On Friday I attended the Southern California chapter of the American Theological Library Association (SCATLA) meeting held at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California.

It is our custom to tour the host library. Pepperdine's Head of Special Collections and University Archives, Melissa Nykanen, lead the tour which, of course, included the Special Collections. This is an exciting year for her as Pepperdine celebrates their 75th year anniversary in 2012.

We started the tour in the room where the Saint John's Bible is on display. It is "a 21st-century Bible that uses a combination of medieval manuscript techniques and modern technologies and themes." Pretty nifty.

But since Hope shares the same historical roots in the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement, their Churches of Christ Heritage Center was of particular interest to me. (Too bad I didn't get any pictures in there.) Pepperdine comes from the Churches of Christ "branch" of the movement whereas Hope is of the Independent flavor.

Special collections and archives can be an invaluable asset to an institution's heritage. They take a significant commitment of financial and human resources to maintain. Because materials are often one-of-a-kind and brittle, they are protected from human handling. Digitizing special collections for preservation has been the smart choice for libraries and museums.

Did you know that the Darling Library has digitized the first nine years of the Lampas (yearbook) and a small collection of photographs? A major project completed some years ago was to digitize a collection of sermons and other materials from charismatic church leader, Dr. George P. Taubman.

The HIU archives "identifies, collects, preserves, and makes accessible historical materials related to the ongoing history of Hope International University under its various names as well as the Restoration Movement."

Take some time to explore our heritage!

Review: Mango Languages

2012-01-27T00:30:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Adunct Professor of Music, Janell Coskun. She wins a T-shirt for writing a review of one of our library resources!

I was so excited to find Mango Languages on the HIU Library website, under M on the resources page. I have been trying to find a good program to study Turkish, and have even used Rosetta Stone which is great for memorizing vocabulary words, but I found Mango to be more descriptive and comprehensive, as well as very user-friendly. By the end of an hour I could easily say Im sorry, I dont speak Turkish very well. Im not from here. Im from America. Where are you from? I also learned a long list of vocabulary words!

I was quite amazed that I could understand the grammatical rules behind the structure of the sentences as well, and even learned cultural tips along the way in my two chapters of study I completed so far. In preparation for my upcoming trip to Turkey in May, I feel that I will be fairly capable in conversing in the language if I practice using Mango Languages on a daily basis. It seems like a wonderful program for someone wanting to learn a foreign language easily and quickly!

Janell Coskun, MM
Adjunct Professor of Music, online

You, too, can write a review of one of our resources and win a library T-Shirt! Students, staff, faculty, and alumni of Hope International University are eligible.

What are you reading, Neil Baker?

2012-01-25T00:01:00.000-08:00

In preparation for my involvement with Hope's Model United Nations Team, I picked up David Forsythe's text Human Rights in International Relations. As I've been assigned to the issue of international humanitarian aid, I thought it would be helpful to do some research on human rights in global context. Forsythe's book has been a valuable resource!

Forsythe sets out to present an analysis of the state of human rights on the international stage today as well as to project their development into the present century. While he does recognize the wide gulf between the liberal rhetoric of most contemporary democracies on the subject of human rights and the dismal reality of the the turbulent twentieth century, his long-term vision is generally optimistic. The evidence, he concedes, can certainly be interpreted in conflicting ways; nevertheless, his guarded conclusion is that "the twenty-first century should be better than the twentieth."

The text is laid out in terms of four sub-themes: the likeliness of human rights to maintain their prominent place in world affairs indefinitely; the importance of considering human rights in the form of soft-law when evaluating their influence on the world stage, and not their presence in codified pronouncements only; the significant role of non-governmental organizations in propagating human rights; and the fundamental change that the notion of state sovereignty is undergoing.

Next on my reading list, of course, will probably be a textbook of some sort, as classes are beginning soon. However, I am fairly excited about the classes that I have lined up this semester!

Neil Baker is a Liberal Arts major here at HIU, with a concentration in Philosophy and Theology. He is pictured above with Hope's MUN Team, which will be attending an MUN conference at Harvard University this February. From left to right, the team members pictured are: Dr. Steve Edgington (supervisor), Sineesenatu "Sine" Schirmer, Amy Thorne, Hillary Lamont, Neil Baker, Prof. Roberto Sirvent (supervisor), Daniel Sugimoto, Ryan McKinney (supervisor), Sarah Brown, and Kasey Philyaw.

Human Rights in International Relations by David P. Forsythe, Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, 2006.

This book may be purchased at Amazon.com and Better World Books.

You may also find this book at your local library by searching WorldCat.org.

The third edition of this book is available for pre-order at Barnes and Noble.

We'd love to know what you are reading. To join the fun, fill out the "What are you reading?" questionnaire and submit it by following the instructions included.