Work

August 2001

• At the beginning of the school year, Paul Sullivan, a talented novice webster, became the first Saint John's Prep student to be employed in the Abbey Web Office.
• Late this month I met with S. Colleen Haggerty OSB, about her expections for the Federation of Saint Benedict website.
• The comprehensive renovation of the SJA website mentioned below has begun -- in the absence of a Director of Development for the Abbey. Luckily a retiring Regent of Saint John's University was able to convince a Twin Cities design firm to tackle the intimidating project of creating a "corporate identity" for Saint John's Abbey, a division of OSB, Inc. The elements of the design solution: two type fonts, the Kacmarcik Cross, water, blue, green and grey -- have been incorporated into the website's first "Style Guide" and some of the leading pages. "Vocations," the keystone of the SJA website, awaits a considered re-incarnation.
• Making resources available online for Benedictine Oblates continues to be a high priority. A new online version of Pope Saint Gregory's Life of Benedict (Dialogs II) was created from an ancient, copyright-free text. The "Life of Benedict and the Origin of the Oblates" appeared in time for the Oblate Directors' meeting, and "The Benedictines" by Dom Bruno Hicks (CTS, 1912) is an excellent overview of Benedictine history up to the dawn of the twentieth century. All three productions are available in "Frames" or "No Frames" versions.
• Oblate Lucy Johnson did the most work preparing our joint presentation for the biennial Oblate Directors' meeting, this year meeting at St. Benedict's Monastery, 27 July - 1 August. Our session is available online either as a PowerPoint® presentation (200KB), "Reflections, Resources and Recommendations," or as a M$ Word® document (24KB). I adapted this excellent overview of Benedictine Web resources for use at the Benedictine Development Symposium, St. Benedict Center, Schuyler, NE, 16-19 August.
• Appealing to a wider, highly appreciative even world-wide audience are, since 1 May 2001, the "Daily Reflections" written by Fr. Don Talafous, SJU Alumni Chaplain.
• Like Fr. Don's "Reflections," the OSB Perpetual Calendar was made possible by a publicly available Perl script that I adapted for local use on our highly stable Unix platform.
• About the same time in May, an account at Cafepress.com was established experimentally to create the OSB Website Store.

February 2001

• This column has been neglected for many months. Since summer of 2000, I have spent more brainpower on theoretical, ecumenical, ecclesiological, theological and, especially, intermonastic concerns than implementing to any great extent the spectacular developments in HTML.
• Nevertheless, I implemented or featured somewhat sophisticated Web applications in the SJA Guestmaster's Postcards, Nick's Geographic Search Form and Daily RB Reading and re-engineered Guest Book. I was delighted to be able to enhance the OSB.org/ website with Schwester Aquinata Böckmann OSB's brilliantly organized RB Bibliography. Cascading Style Sheets became de rigueur, but I made but halting progress with " Active Server Pages."
• The SJA website awaits its thoroughgoing "renovation" via the SJA Development Office. The framework as it exists, however, was able to accommodate a new series of pages for the Guestmaster.
• The Vocations Director is Web-saavy and Internaut-friendly, but the vocations website retains most of Bro. Simon-Hoa's laudable, but dated, design and structure.
• Fr. Tom Gillespie OSB welcomed St. Paul's Monastery as a collaborative project that complemented his varied competencies.

Summer 2000

• For summer 2000, Nick J. Murphy, incoming SJU freshman, webmaster for Gamedev.net/, has been hired for the summer and fall. In August 2000, ABA 2000 will be preceded by a web workshop at St. Meinrad's Archabbey.
• Starting 1 July 1999, I will be allowed to devote myself full-time to webwork as manager of the Abbey Web Office. Edwin P. Scherr, SJU, has been engaged as the Abbey Web Office's first student associate for the summer, and Tom Gillespie OSB continues to work on the Saint Benedict Monastery and other monastic websites. Sophomore Devin P. Gawne-Mark joins Ed in September. Devin's first project is a timely one, the ORDO for 2000. [As seniors in 2001-2, Devin and Ed will managed the Lower Stumpf Lake Review website.]
• I began part-time work in September 1998 as a Public Services Librarian at Saint John's prestigious Alcuin Library that will last until the end of June. Many of the staff are still present from when I left the library for Europe in 1987.
• "Brother Richard's Favorite URLs," an index and navigation guide that reflects my personal and professional interests.
• "The Order of Saint Benedict," a site founded 1 April 1995, blessed by +Abbot Primate Jerome OSB (1930-95) and dedicated to sharing information about the monastic order of folk.
• Saint John's Abbey

Collaborations:

• Arca Artium, Saint John's Abbey and University.
• Friends of Saint Benedict, Wash., DC.
• ISTI, the Interfaith Sexual Trauma Institute, WWW consultant.
• "The Liturgical Press," the Home Page of the Catholic publishing house founded by Dom Virgil Michel and Saint John's Abbey in 1926. Since autumn 1997, the complete Lit Press catalog is available online thanks to Kay Weiss and her colleagues.
• Minnesota Fellowship of Reconciliation, webmaster.
• Saint John's Preparatory School, WWW consultant.

Contents

Pax tecum!

Richard Oliver, OSB, MA
Abbey Web Office
Box 2015
Saint John's Abbey
Collegeville, MN 56321-2015
Comments, questions, or suggestions? Write.

Brother Richard OSB