Those who have received this issue of Bangor Seminary’s General Theological Library Bulletin should also have received the previous issue, which included an essay on a climb up Mt. Katahdin in 1858 by then student John Sewall. We hope you enjoyed that essay and the reviews that are presented in this issue, which has been put together by Tom O’Donnell, our Assistant Librarian in Portland.

Some readers have inquired about the status of their memberships in the General Theological Library, since no invoices have been received for some time. The whole question of memberships has been on our minds for some time. Since taking over the GTL, Bangor Seminary has attempted to continue serving the reading needs of members of long standing. Books from the whole of the Seminary’s collections have been made available to members. This is a service we will continue to support. But in these days of electronic communications between libraries for purposes of interlibrary loan, no one needs to be totally dependent upon a single library for service as in the past. We have decided to discontinue the practice of operating a membership library along with the solicitation of annual dues. You are cordially invited, however, to become a "Friend of the Library" and to make an annual contribution to support our work. You are invited to continue to avail yourselves of library services even if you are unable to contribute. The General Theological Library has many friends from its illustrious past, and we want to continue to support them.

It is important to us to keep on publishing the Bulletin and to make it available to any who would like to receive it. While a print copy is available, it is also to be found on the world wide web! It is available on Bangor Seminary’s web site at http://www.bts.edu.

We wish for you a blessed holiday season!

Clifton G. Davis
Librarian