The Archives
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Overview
The Lord’s New Church maintains an archive of the Church’s collection of books and its historical records (the "Archives"). The Church is committed to preserving its ecclesiastical, social, and institutional history in the Archives. The Archives collects and maintains records of enduring historical value, i.e., those that document the doctrine, history, organization, policies, and social activities of the Church. In general, records have enduring value if they contain evidence of the Church's organization, function, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities, or because of their informational value. Examples of such records are those containing information developed in preparation of position papers, meeting minutes, sermons, doctrinal classes, children’s talks, addresses, ecclesiastical and lay correspondence, financial records, a limited number of email print-outs, and historic trial documents; relating to the Church body in the USA, southern Africa, Europe, and Japan. Records may be in any physical format including but not limited to paper, books, microforms, photographs, slides, drawings, maps, architectural blueprints, motion picture film, newspaper clippings, CDs and DVDs, videotapes and audio cassettes, reel-to-reel tapes, floppy discs, and computer hard drives. The Archives benefits from the generosity of the Church community and may accept donations of documents, scrapbooks, photographs, memorabilia and other materials that help to tell the story of the Church, its history, members, and associations. Requests for Archival Material The Archives provides a variety of duplication services, but reserves the right to restrict reproduction of materials due to condition, size, copyright, or for any other reason. Duplication options include photocopy; color photocopy; photographic reproduction; duplication of sound recordings; and digitized copies of photographs and documents. Requests for paper or .pdf copies of non-sensitive documents can be made by two means: 1) By completing the "Request Archival Material" on this page. 2) By phone, email, or letter correspondence in which a description of needed materials is furnished. At this time, document scanning services are free of charge. However, a fee of three cents per page (payable by check or in cash) will be assessed for paper copying requests that take over three hours to fulfill, or that involve 50 printed pages or more. Materials in the Archives include works that are subject to domestic and international copyright laws that govern the making of photocopies and other reproductions of such copyrighted materials. Under certain conditions specified by law, a copyrighted work may be reproduced for educational and scholarly purposes. Such reproductions are intended for individual use only and may not be further reproduced, used in the preparation of derivative works, distributed, performed, displayed, published, broadcast, offered for sale, transferred to another individual or deposited in another institution without written permission from the Archivist, the Church and the Corporation, and the copyright owner. Everyone who accesses the Archives is responsible for observing all applicable domestic and international copyright laws. Documents and Material stored in the Archives The Archives contains public and sensitive documents pertaining to the history, finances, and organization of the Church. As such, it provides limited and supervised access for Church members, researchers, and other members of the Public. Under no circumstances may an original source leave the Archive facilities. The following are guidelines that set forth the access policies applicable to each classification of documents: Sensitive Documents Certain documents are sensitive and contain confidential information and are only accessible by the Executive Director of the Corporation, legal counsel for the Church or the Corporation, the Church’s Director of Education, or the Archivist and his/her assistant(s). Non-sensitive Documents All non-sensitive documents are accessible by members of the public under supervision and by appointment only. Access to non-sensitive documents is granted only by application to the Archivist (see the attached application form); alternatively, if the Archivist is unavailable, the Corporation’s Executive Director, legal counsel for the Church or the Corporation, or the Church’s Director of Education may grant such permission. Special Collections Books in the Library are part of a special collection, and the public may be afforded limited access to these materials, under supervision. One copy of each book shall be considered an Archive copy. (If there is interest in maintaining a public reading room, and should space for such a facility become available, the Archive can make copies of certain books available for wider use.) The Archives also houses the Church’s collection of ecclesiastical and collateral literature, which cannot be lent out, but may be accessed on site in the Archive facilities under supervision. The policy regarding the access of books is therefore the same as that which dictates the access of public archive materials. |
Phone: 215-947-2727 ext. 210
Mailing Address: PO Box 7 Bryn Athyn, PA 19009 |
