by Nathan Nelson, 4th Year
Most people here at Concordia Seminary I would dare say know about our famous Bach Bible. Our library’s copy of this famous composer’s Bible is by far one of our library’s greatest claims to fame (alongside Ptery the Pterodactyl, of course). However, few know that we have a rare book room filled with countless old and unique books. Although their historical nature and rarity is their main draw, many of these books are quite practical to ministry studies. If you are looking for more insights for your sermon or for exegetical work, there are multiple rare commentaries in this room that could aid you. If you are looking to delve deeper into our Lutheran confessions, there are a number of rare editions of the Book of Concord and other related works to browse.
This room likely has something that could immediately help inform your studies here at the seminary, and the best part about this room is that you have access to it anytime you want during normal library hours. If you were to go up to the top floor of our library and go to the room with the windows on the opposite side of our shelves of periodicals, you would find our rare book room through there. Your campus ID should work on the doors into the room, but if for some reason you should need help accessing it, you can ask Bruce Durazzi, our special collections librarian, for assistance or any of our workers at the front desk.
Our rare book collection is an incredible resource that should not be undervalued. I highly encourage you all to swing by to investigate it whenever you have the opportunity to do so. Who knows, familiarizing yourself with it might even help you locate Ptery in the future. There’s a chance he might also take an interest in some of our rare books as well.