Among the activities of the Research Institute this year, we have thrown ourselves fully into the world of science and technology with three projects that take advantage of this burgeoning medium.
At the forefront of our efforts, thanks to the ongoing generosity of the Waldorf Curriculum Fund, have been several new series of freshly collected articles in the form of e-books. A six-volume set, under the title When Healing Becomes Learning, brings together selected essays from the Journal of Anthroposophical Medicine. We are grateful to our colleagues at the Journal for their permission to draw from their rich archives.
Another series of e-books, just begun, involves the translation of key books and articles on education into Spanish. Until this year, we have been concentrating on the translation of useful resources into English, primarily out of German. But with a widening international readership––especially of our Online Waldorf Library (OWL)––we have felt the need to make some of our resources available to a fast-growing audience of Spanish speakers and readers.
The first in this new series, now posted on the OWL, is geared towards readers interested in Rudolf Steiner’s indications on play. Originally entitled On the Play of the Child, this text is now available as Sobre el juego del nino. We thank our colleagues at the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America (WECAN) for making this and further titles available for translation.
A second Spanish translation, this one concerning the teaching of handwork, is in production. As the OWL librarian, Marianne Alsop continues to enhance the collection while answering countless enquiries from around the world.
Finally, with the blessing of the Pedagogical Section Council of North America, we have posted in e-book form five of their celebrated texts, including two by Johannes Tautz (nicknamed the “historian” of the Waldorf movement), one by Jorgen Smit (based on his lectures to North American Waldorf teachers while he was head of the Pedagogical Section in Dornach), and a collection of essays under the title And Who Shall Teach the Teachers: The Christ Impulse in Waldorf Education. In addition, we have converted into e-book format Henry Barnes’ little gem The Third Space, a study of the first Goetheanum building as a metaphor for the underlying form of Waldorf education.
Beyond these new ventures, the Research Institute continues to make available in e-book form a lengthening list of titles, most of them brought out by AWSNA Publications. All of these materials––numbering over 100 e-books by now––are freely available on the Research Institute’s OWL website. Behind the scenes, but still in the world of technology, we have been working with our new webmaster to redesign and enhance the Institute’s own website.
