austraLasia #2614
A busy week in the Region
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
A busy week in the Region
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
