Library Book Club Seeks Regent Readers!
by Harold Henkel , Assistant Librarian

The Library Book Club invites the Regent community to rediscover the joy of reading for pleasure! The Club meets on campus to discuss great books, old and new.  We also have a group site on LibraryThing, the Web’s #1 site for book lovers.

Here is the new schedule of books:

With all the demands of research and scholarship with which Regent students and faculty contend, it might reasonably be asked, “why should I occupy my few leisure hours with more reading?!” I would suggest two possible answers:

1. Reading, like prayer, is a discipline. Just as daily prayer makes possible a deeper communion with God, regular reading of great literature has the effect of expanding one’s intellectual and emotional vistas and sharpening sensibilities.
   
   
2. Active reading offers the pleasure of engaging with the some of the great minds and spirits of the ages. To take an example from the Bible, Job and Ecclesiastes are united in their pessimism about man’s lot on earth. But how different are their responses!   As Raymond Scheindlin, a modern translator of Job (reviewed by Randall Pannell in August 2007) notes, “Ecclesiastes finds all things wearying, repeating themselves in an endless round of life and death in which nothing new really ever happen; he finds life’s abundance, which is so invigorating to the author of Job to be as insubstantial as a vapor. To the author of Job, the world pulsates with life. He expresses everything with vehemence; he is passionate about injustice, and about every day life in its glorious detail” (p. 24-5).                                                                                                                           

The purpose of the Library Book Club is to serve as a resource that encourages the University community to read for pleasure and enrichment. Meetings are held once a month to discuss the current selection in friendly setting. Online discussions are available all the time on LibraryThing. Members are under no obligation to read all the books on the schedule, but are free to participate according to their available time and interests.    

In August, the Book Club will read A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini. The author’s first novel, The Kite Runner, vividly brought to life the culture and people of Afghanistan to a worldwide audience. A Thousand Splendid Suns tells the story of two Afghan women, born a generation a part, form 1974 to 2003. In a YouTube video, Hosseini discusses his 2003 trip to Kabul, which provided the inspiration for the novel.  

For more information contact Harold Henkel.

One of the principal challenges faced by academic libraries is the fundamental change in the way students and researchers procure information. Since online resources are available off-campus and around-the-clock, many students who formerly needed to come to the library to complete assignments now opt for studying at home. At Regent, even research assistance is now available instantly through our Reference IM service. All these possibilities have called into question the library’s traditional role as the heart of the university.

To bridge the gap between the academic and social lives of students, academic libraries are developing creative forms of education and outreach. Examples of some of the Library’s outreach programs include our Constitution Day celebrations, National Library Week luncheon with guest speakers, the Library Book Club, and our upcoming 25th Anniversary.

Advances in information technology have also placed a new emphasis for the Library faculty on research instruction. The Library’s database homepage now lists 183 subscription databases and other online applications. To help students and faculty make the most of these resources, the librarians are increasingly focused on developing effective instructional methods, including on and off-campus workshops, automated Web tutorials, and one-on-one consultations, both in person and via the telephone. The Library’s Information Research & Resources class is also revised annually to provide the most up-to-date content and user-friendly interface.

Outreach programs extend to the faculty as well.  Regent librarians serve as liaisons between the Library and the University’s schools. They work with faculty and deans to select new resources and develop instruction strategies for enhancing the quality of student research. Since University faculty, no less than students, can find it difficult to keep up with the latest resources, Regent Librarians also offer private consultations customized to individual faculty needs.

In all of its education and outreach programs, the Library seeks to give the Regent community a reason to want to visit us, either on-campus or online. Experience has shown us that the key to this goal is combining innovative programs with the best possible resources and services.   

Cary Reynolds is a reference assistant at the Library information desk. She completed her MS in Library and Information science at Syracuse University in May 2008.

Finding Religion Statistics

How many Evangelicals attend a religious service more than once a week? What is the distribution of Mormons in America? Which people groups have the least missions work directed toward them? Statistical data is available through the Library webpages in a number of places.  A good starting point is a Website link for the Association of Religion Data Archives found on the library Religious Resources homepage, under, statistics. Housed at Penn State University, the Association of Religion Data Archives serves as a statistical data clearinghouse for researchers, congregations, educators, and the press. You can find in-depth studies based on state, region, or county, with inter-active maps.  Enter a zip code on their main Web page, about half way down at, “U.S. Maps,” and the program will display a regional map showing adherent percentiles by major religious groups or by denomination, with options for displaying 1980 and 1990 data. All data, including graphs, maps, and tables, can be downloaded and used in research publications as long as the material is properly cited.

If you are looking for religion numbers by country, use the World Christian Database. Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, this database covers 238 countries, 3,000 provinces, 5,000 cities, and 13,000 ethno-linguistic people groups, incorporating all the data from David Barrett’s, World Christian Encyclopedia, and his World Christian Trends. This is the program of choice if you are doing a missions research project on an unreached people group.

Two more Web sites are of special interest, The Barna Group research pages, and the U. S. Religious Landscape Survey. Both of these are linked on the Religion Resources page under “statistics.” Author of thirty-nine books including, The Frog in the Kettle, George Barna is hailed by some as “the most quoted person in the Christian Church today.” Barna’s Website offers a “Barna by Topic” page with summary statistical data on subjects such as church attendance, Hispanics, faith commitment, gender differences, and Evangelical Christians, to name a few. For example, according to Barna, four percent of registered Democrats and five percent of registered Independents are evangelical Christians, compared to nineteen percent of registered Republicans.

The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey was conducted in 2007 using interviews with more than 35,000 Americans. The special survey, sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, details the beliefs and practices of the American public using maps, tables, summaries, and comparative studies.

The survey shows, among other things, that “more than half of Americans say religion is very important in their lives, attend religious services regularly and pray daily. Furthermore a plurality of adults who are affiliated with a religion want their religion to preserve its traditional beliefs and practices rather than adjust to new circumstances or adopt modern beliefs and practices.” ¹ The site offers reports, publications, legal backgrounds, and forum transcripts which may be viewed by date or topic. Topics include bioethics, death penalty, gay marriage, and religion and public schools, among others. One interesting feature is the opportunity to compare American political candidates on issues such abortion, church and state, death penalty, and education.

Any kind of quantitative research is dependent on reliable statistical information. Online resources like World Christian Database, The Barna Group, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, and other Religion Statistics sites help researchers avoid potential pitfalls of Web-based research and find trustworthy data quickly.

Back to contents

Unless you’ve been living in an area that doesn’t get very good TV reception, you know that former Vice-President Al Gore recently won a Nobel Peace Prize for his tireless efforts to save the earth from its selfish inhabitants, i.e. humans. For a small fee he will jet over and explain why you should wholeheartedly embrace his ideas and feel "profound joy and gratitude that we are the generation about which 1000 years from now orchestras and poets and singers will celebrate by saying: they were the ones that found within themselves to solve this crisis and lay the basis for a bright and optimistic human future."¹

According to Gore, global warming is not only a scientific fact, but that there is also a consensus in the scientific community that it is entirely the fault of...well, you guessed it.

But is Al Gore right? Are we the cause of a warming planet? Will this warmer planet lead to catastrophic events, such as hurricanes the likes of which will make Katrina look like a fun day at the water park? Is there even a scientific consensus? Not according to Christopher C. Horner, a Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and expert on global warming legislation and regulation, as well as the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism. In this book, Horner takes to task Al Gore’s view of the world, bringing common sense and rational discourse to a field which thrives on sensationalism and predictions of imminent doom (On May 18, 2008, Prince Charles issued a warning that the world has but eighteen months left to stop imminent climate change disaster). For instance, Horner shows that there is sufficient reason to doubt the supposed “alarming rise in temperature” of the Earth’s surface from the 1980’s through the early 2000’s. His primary argument is that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, many weather stations in Siberia did not report temperature readings during the 1990s, thus skewing world temperature averages.

Horner does not deny that the Earth is warming up, but he does question how rapidly it is warming, how much human beings have contributed to this rise, and if warming is really a bad thing. After all, according to Horner there have been previous periods when the Earth was warmer during which the world as a whole became more prosperous. Horner also argues that the idea that carbon is a bad thing is ridiculous. If carbon is a major building block of life, and if trees convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, does it not follow that carbon is an important part of the circle of life on earth?  These questions and more are answered by Horner in this book.

Is Horner right? Well, you’ll have to read him and do some research to determine that for yourself. But, it is nice to read another perspective on the so-called threat of global warming. After all, every good scholar knows that there are at least two sides to any issue, and it is only when one is armed with the viewpoints of each side that a rational decision can be made. Otherwise, we are left with sensationalism that gets rewarded with prestige. And that, above everything else, should be an abomination to all who consider themselves rational, thinking beings.

1. Speech to TED Conference (March 2008).

Sam Reese is a graduate assistant at the Library circulation desk. He is currently writing his master’s thesis in the School of Divinity. When not working, Mr. Reese practices holding his breath to reduce his carbon footprint.

Are you interested in writing a book review for Library Link? If so, please contact Harold Henkel at harohen@regent.edu.