The Reigner Recording Library was the brainchild of Dr. Robert White Kirkpatrick. He wanted to build a research and resource collection showcasing excellence in lectures, public speaking, and sermons for students learning preaching techniques. What began as classroom exercises in 1950 soon blossomed into the full scale recording of sermons and lectures hosted by the Seminary. He began with fairly inexpensive recording equipment, but as the project grew, he obtained funding from a technology expert in Baltimore named Dr. Charles A Reigner.
Dr. Kirkpatrick recorded classes, sermons, lectures, and even whole conferences. Students studying abroad were encouraged to make recordings for the Library as well. He even recorded the World Council of Churches assemblies in Evanston and and New Delhi. His vision was to create an audiovisual library of prominent popular and academic public speakers and ministers that would be available to researchers, ministry students, and those working within the confines of Christian education, as well as to other members of the interested public.
Today, those recordings can be found on our audiocassettes and CDs. We are also slowly moving some to digital formats that will be available in our online special collections available to members of the Library.
You can find out more about the Reigner Recording Library in A Copious Fountain: A History of Union Presbyterian Seminary 1812-2012 by William B. Sweetser, Jr. We also have copies of the 540 page Reigner Recording Library Catalog of Cassettes 1988 available to be read in the Library.