Free Books from Jehovah's Witness in NYC

[Guest Kurt]

A Table of Religion

A few weeks ago, I was walking along Broadway outside of Columbia University in NYC, and spotted a table of "yellow books." When I approached, I realized that the three smiling young women were from Watchtower (Jehovah's Witness), and were handing out books titled "What Does the Bible Really Teach?" The interesting thing about these little volumes is that they had them in dozens of languages, from Arabic to Armenian, Chinese to Czech, and more. I took two, an English and Hebrew version, which I will add to the "contemporary tracts in religion" collection at the library that I'm trying to build. I'll have to keep my eyes open for more of these items. In NYC, you can find a lot of this material, but it is often discarded or not looked on as relevant for contemporary collection development. I think it has some value, but that value may come in many years, when scholars are looking to study tracts and religious booklets from the early 21st century.

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Anthony J. Elia
I am director of library and educational technology at Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis. I write and teach about the history of books, technology, travel, and music