ROME: 27 March 2010 -- Given that no austraLasia has been issued now for a week
you could be forgiven for thinking that the coordinator is on holidays.
Unfortunately not! What readers do not always realise is the
amount of behind-the-scenes work associated at least broadly with this
enterprise, and in that regard it has been an extremely busy
week! Let's now bring you up to date on some of that.
There is a constant flow of correspondence from
people in the region, or readers of aLa from outside the region, who
have something to offer. So thanks to Keith and an active group of
novices in the Philippines, you now have, in addition to the Mass
Propers for Salesian Saints and Blesseds, the Proper
of the Hours. Just ignore the fact that some of these show up
with Powerpoint icons for now (they are in fact docx files). MS docx
format creates minor problems and we need to save these files back to
doc, which was overlooked. But they still open, so you can access
them. Over the next week they will be replaced with the 'normal'
doc format.
Another silent but effective piece of work achieved
this week has been a complete overhaul of the 'subject' tag in SDL. You
can now very easily search items if you have an idea in mind, a word,
maybe. Subject tag items are now just a keyword (even if a
multiple_key_word). Gone are the lengthy and almost completely useless
descriptions. This has been achieved for the English, Italian and
Spanish collections and will be extended. It is painstakingly slow work!
Thanks to Clive from Malta, anyone who would like a
Salesian Saints calendar in .ics format (for use in iPhone and
similar) can simply write for it and I'll send it to you.
Several have been asking for material on Rua in this
centenary year. There is pitifully little in English, but you
might be heartened to know that the Desramaut translation is finally in
Bangalore's hands. We'll have to wait until we know how long the
editing and printing process will take, but the major hurdle is over.
Meanwhile, the Beatification
homily is available in English, and if you read and understand
Italian, then you will be pleased to know that now the Amadei
and Ceria 'lives' of Rua are available. But be warned - they are
hefty tomes and therefore hefty downloads. Again you will notice that
one of these turns up as an ppt icon too! That's because it got sent to
me as a linearized pdf file - linearized pdfs are meant for getting the
first page up quickly on the web but they play havoc with conversion
processes, so now you have two tips if you are sending material: save
docx back to doc and avoid linearized pdf format where possible.
There is work going on in two Asian languages at the
moment (well, possibly in others too, but we can only tell you about
what we know of) in Salesian materials. From Vietnam comes news that 4
of Art Lenti's volumes are already in Vietnamese, and now they have the
Rua text that is possibly being added to the valuable work done by Fr
Joseph Phuoc Nguyen who besides teaching philosophy, does translation
as well. And would you believe that Fr Frank Drohan in Japan, by
now looking back on 90 years, is unstoppable. He has already completed
work on one of the Rua biographies. Hopefully some of these Asian
language translations can find their way into SDL (hint).
Then came a request wondering if the FMA Sisters
were invited to Australia long before their eventual arrival in the
1950's. The short answer to that is yes. They were invited
in the 1920's and things seemed to be moving in that direction, but
then the process got held up. We have the evidence in writing!
And then there's the various people around the
region wanting a photo of this and a text for that, and hopefully
everyone has been satisfied.
In the meantime don't forget to send in a little news of what's
happening in your corner of the Pacific or Indian ocean. Inventing news
is not one of my talents! _________________ AustraLasia is an
email
service
for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions
as an
agency for ANS based in
Rome.
For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com
.
Use Bosconet-wiki
to be interactive. RSS feeds - just go to Bosconet, click on
austraLasia
2009 in the sidebar. You will see the RSS orange icon in your browser
address bar - add it from there. Or be interactive with the EAO blog Cetera Tolle. Avail
yourself of the Salesian
Digital
Library
at http://sdl.sdb.org
