Russell Moore, above, is the new chief editor of Christianity Today, and formerly the head of the Ethics Committee of the Southern Baptist Church. I had a chance to meet with him and get to know him at our John Wesley Fellows meeting at the Museum of the Bible in January, and he impressed me as a devout Christian through and through. Here he is commending this pastor in Charlotte for calling out the total misuse of the Bible to... Read more
The lost colony has been one of the favorite mysteries N.C. school children have been regaled with forever. My personal theory, having gone to see the Lost Colony play, is that the colonists were carted off my giant mosquitoes. If you go to the play in summer, bring your spray. We are fortunate that we have early drawings by John White and others of what such a colony would have looked like. Before the 17th century, Thomas Harriot published his... Read more
Of the various special collections there are indeed some amazing rare books, for instance this one from John Adams. There is as well a special exhibit on John Audubon… In our next and final post we will say more about the exhibit on the Lost Colony. Read more
My favorite part of the library these days is the Special Collections which you enter through a door on the left side of building. There is a standing exhibit about Sir Walter Raleigh (pronounced Rowley according to Chris Armitage, emeritus professor of English at UNC who taught there for about 50 years!). Above is the oldest painting of the man, for whom the capital city of the state is named. Raleigh was a commoner, that through poetry written for... Read more
This is the view from in front of the Admin building looking towards the front of the old library. Notice the top of the bell tower behind it, which looks like this….. and stands across the street from the back of the library. This first shot below shows the central part of the library built while Uncle Louey was the head librarian. He wanted a classic library with marble, and Greek columns, and an oculus, and cathedral ceilings and roof... Read more
Louis Round Wilson was born in the mountains of N.C. in Lenoir in 1876. No one could have known he was destined to become the most famous librarian in the whole state in the 20th century, for whom the grand old library at UNC is quite appropriately named. He’s the one that brought that library into modernity. The original building was completed in 1929, the two wings were added in 1952, and an addition to the stacks happened in 1977.... Read more
This post could be called odds and ends…. of sorts. Here first is some ancient glassware, including perfume bottles… and a mirror And right around the corner is a collection of mostly small statues by the famous French sculptor, Rodin… His most famous statue was Le Penser— the Thinker…. of which there were many renderings, and here’s a small one…. The one I found most evocative is the statue of Eve, trying to hide her shame…. And finally, there is... Read more
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