Library Review Spirituality in Practice: Catholics in America (TRS 160)

Library Review – Spirituality in Practice: Catholics in America (TRS 160) 2011 Introduction

After reviewing the proposed syllabus for this course in light of the library resources available for its implementation, I think it would be best practice to review the entire collection (especially those materials available through interlibrary loan) in all its various formats to see if the breadth and depth of those materials available for research in this subject.

This review is best performed by investigating the Library of Congress Subject Headings which would best describe this course and making judgments concerning the quality and quantity of each document type; in the following narrative, each unique document type will be covered and a conclusion presented at the end of this report.

Monographs: Stacks & Reference

There are a number of Library of Congress Subject Headings which describe the many facets of research covered by this topic. I have chosen the most prominent twelve (12) subject headings to give an idea of the breadth and depth of available materials. The library collection currently contains over 1,500 titles in these subject areas. While the union catalog Link+ (the union catalog of over 120 libraries in California and Nevada of which Saint Mary’s College is a member), contains almost 10,000 monographic titles in these subject areas, it is important to remember that a library resources review of this type should only be concerned with those materials currently held by Saint Mary’s College. A breakdown of this collection is given below:

Monographs LIBRARY OF CONGRESS SUBJECT HEADING in ALBERT Blacks – Religion 5 Catholic Church – Prayers and Devotions 27 Mysticism 324 Piety 10 Religion and Sociology 128 Sacred Space – United States 4 Spiritual Life 563 Spiritual Life – Catholic Church 212 Spirituality 227 Spirituality – Catholic Church 34 Women – Religious Life 49 Women – Spiritual Directors 1 TOTAL 1584

1 | P a g e Library Review – Spirituality in Practice: Catholics in America (TRS 160) 2011 There are also a number of excellent reference titles in this subject area which are available to students in the Saint Albert Hall Library. These titles are listed below:

200.16 B836 Religion and society in North America : an annotated bibliography / Robert deV. Brunkow, editor. Santa Barbara, Calif. : ABC-Clio Information Services, 1983.

200.19 P186 Handbook of the psychology of religion and spirituality / edited by Raymond F. Paloutzian, Crystal L. Park. New York : Guilford Press, c2005.

203 Sw28 Encyclopedia of religion and society / William H. Swatos, Jr., editor ; Peter Kivisto, associate editor ; Barbara J. Denison, James McClenon, assistant editors. Walnut Creek, Calif. : AltaMira Press, c1998.

248.03 D758 The New dictionary of Catholic spirituality / editor, Michael Downey. Collegeville, Minn. : Liturgical Press, c1993.

248.03 W137 The Westminster dictionary of Christian spirituality / edited by Gordon S. Wakefield. Philadelphia : Westminster Press, c1983.

264.003 F495 The New dictionary of sacramental worship / editor, Peter E. Fink. Collegeville, Minn. : Liturgical Press, 1990.

282 N737 Noonan, James-Charles. The Church visible : the ceremonial life and protocol of the Roman Catholic Church / James- Charles Noonan, Jr. ; John P. Foley, special consultor ; produced by Amaranth. New York : Viking, 1996.

282.73 Se37 Church polity and American politics : issues in contemporary American Catholicism / edited by Mary C. Segers. New York : Garland Pub., 1990.

2 | P a g e Library Review – Spirituality in Practice: Catholics in America (TRS 160) 2011 306.6 B388 The SAGE handbook of the sociology of religion / edited by James A. Beckford and N.J. Demerath III. Los Angeles : SAGE Publications, 2007.

Audiovisual Materials

There are also a number of excellent audiovisual titles in this subject area which are available to students in the Saint Albert Hall Library. These titles are listed below:

DVD S015 Margery Kempe [videorecording] / director, Kate Gillen ; producer, David Wesley ; Redcanoe Productions, Inc. Princeton, NJ : Films for the Humanities and Sciences, c2003.

DVD BB338 Meetings with remarkable men [videorecording] / adapted for the screen by Jeanne de Salzmann and Peter Brook ; produced by Stuart Lyons ; directed by Peter Brook. Sanpoint, Idaho : Morning Light Press, 2005.

DVD BB402 Karen Blixen's Babettes gæstebud [videorecording] / Metro Goldwyn Mayer ; Just Betzer præsenterer en film af Gabriel Axel ; [produced by Just Betzer and Bo Christensen] Santa Monica, CA : MGM Home Entertainment, [2001]

VHS S66 no.12 Alternative life styles in California [videorecording] : West meets East / BBC-TV. New York : Time-Life Multimedia, 1978.

Disc MM86 Essential integral [electronic resource] / Ken Wilber, Clint Fuhs ; created by Core Integral, Inc. ; brought to you in partnership with Integral Life, Inc. [United States] : Core Integral, Inc., c2009.

DVD S1010 The way of the dreamer [videorecording] : [a course in active dreaming] / with Robert Moss. [United States] : Psyche Productions, c2005.

DVD S464 Into great silence [videorecording] = Le grand silence = Die grosse Stille / Philip Gröning ; Zeitgeist Films... [et al.] [New York, NY] : Zeitgeist Films, 2007.

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DVD S569 What makes us Catholic [videorecording] / with Thomas H. Groome ; [presented by] Silver Burdett Ginn Religion. [Lebanon, Ind.] : Silver Burdett Ginn Religion, c2006.

VHS S749 pt.1 Bassen, Christopher. Together and by association [videorecording] : Lasallian values in action / lecture by Brother Christopher Bassen. Moraga, CA : St. Mary's College of California, 1998.

VHS S1446 Goddess remembered [videorecording] / direction, Donna Read ; writing, D.C. Blade, Donna Read, Gloria Demers. New York : Wellspring Media, 1999, c1989.

VHS S105 Creativity [videorecording] : touching the divine / Presented by the Catholic Communication Campaign. Washington, D.C. : United States Catholic Conference, 1994.

Databases:

The two major journal databases in the field of theology are ATLA (the database of the American Theological Library Association) and CPLI (the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index). Saint Mary’s College subscribes to both of these databases and they provide the chief resource for journal articles in this particular subject area. Using the subject headings previously investigated for monographic works, we can see the following results for a search of the journal literature:

Articles in Articles in SUBJECT HEADING ATLA CPLI Blacks – Religion 5 2 Catholic Church – Prayers and Devotions 27 12 Mysticism 324 262 Piety 10 37 Religion and Sociology 128 109 Sacred Space – United States 4 1 Spiritual Life 563 2281 Spiritual Life – Catholic Church 212 252

4 | P a g e Library Review – Spirituality in Practice: Catholics in America (TRS 160) 2011 Articles in Articles in SUBJECT HEADING ATLA CPLI Spirituality 227 869 Spirituality – Catholic Church 34 224 Women – Religious Life 49 132 Women – Spiritual Directors 1 0 TOTAL 1584 4181

Conclusion and Recommendation:

The collection of the Saint Albert Library in this area is more than adequate to offer this course, both in quality and quantity. Some work has been done in the past five years to really improve this portion of the collection, and its breadth certainly reflects this effort, especially in the monographic and reference portions of this topic. Should this course be approved, I would recommend that any research portion of the course be preceded by one or more library sessions. I would be happy to work with any instructor of this course to provide the kind of background in searching these sections of the collection that these students will need to succeed in their research for this course.

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