The New Verbum Team at Faithlife
Greetings all!
I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Craig St. Clair and I’m the new Verbum Product Manager (basically, that means I’m responsible for the future direction of Verbum). I just came on board in September. I hold a Master of Arts in Systematic Theology (minor in Monastic Studies) from St. John's University in Minnesota and a BA in Liberal Arts focusing on Western Cultural History from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. I’m a Pacific Northwest native who has been living in exile (;-) for nearly 20 years in the Boston area (I'll be moving back to the Northwest soon). I’ve spent a sum total of three years studying in monasteries, I've studied in Rome in grad school (with my wife, who also holds an MA in Systematic Theology), was featured on EWTN's The Journey Home, and have directed my parish's RCIA program for the last 15 years. I'm a convert and was received into the Catholic Church in college at the age of 21. I'm married with two boys and worked previously at EBSCO Information Services managing their Historical and Magazine Archive databases. My particular study and research interests lie primarily in ecclesiology, sacramental theology, anthropology, and monastic studies.
Thomas Gette, who is less new than I am and has been posting in the forum for a number of months, handles Verbum’s marketing and social media outreach. Thomas also holds a Master’s degree in Theology from Franciscan University in Steubenville, as well as a BA in Philosophy from Franciscan.
Thomas and I will be collaborating closely together on new content selection, promotions, blog posts, and pretty much everything else essential to Verbum. I am excited to have someone working on Verbum who is also deeply steeped in the Catholic intellectual tradition.
My focus right now is to bring Verbum--and all of its riches--to a new and broader Catholic audience while still serving the users that have helped to make it the great research and study platform it is today.
I invite any and all feedback as we move forward with Verbum into 2018 and beyond.
Yours in the Faith,
Craig
Comments
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Welcome Craig! Thank you for taking the time to introduce yourself to all of us. I'm very happy to hear that you are taking the role of Verbum Product Manager.
As you already know, the Catholic product line at Faithlife has grown tremendously in the past few years. Having said that, there is so much more. Hopefully a more pro-active approach will put many excellent resources into active development and eventually into our libraries.
Let us know what we can do to help you.
God's Blessings to you on your work [:)]
P.S. I did watch the A Journey Home segment you appeared on: https://chnetwork.org/journey-home/craig-st-clair-former-secularist-journey-home-program/
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Welcome! Thanks for the intro! I look forward to seeing where Verbum goes.
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Craig welcome and was hoping you could look into https://www.logos.com/product/51516/new-collegeville-bible-commentary
I realize that you may not be able to so anything about it as it is listed as being developed. But It would make more sense to have the more affordable one volume edition developed. I know I dropped out of this prepub not because I do not want it but because I am sure I will be able to pick up the one volume edition for half the price sooner or later. Indeed I would not be surprised to see it out in any of the other Bible software that I use. It would be nice to have it in Verbum but the price is just too step, indeed I would even prefer to use the PDF version (for the price savings) as this is a more basic work.
-dan
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Thanks Steve. I hope to build on the past success of Verbum and continue to expand the content in libraries and the overall audience.
Ah, I see you found my Journey Home episode. That was filmed Jan. 2001, so definitely a younger version of myself.
I appreciate the offer to help. This forum looks to be full of great, supportive folks.
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Thanks for the feedback Dan. I'll look into this. The Lit Press' release of the two volume set and single-volume edition certainly changes things in the market for this content, as you rightly point out.
Let me do some asking around and I'll try to have an answer next week.
Thanks again!
Craig
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Welcome Craig!
As a user of Verbum with no interest in non-Catholic Logos products, I'm happy to see new blood promoting specific products for Catholics.
I've just noted that my vol. 3 of Lapide's commentary is the 3rd ed. yet archive.org has the 5th edition. Why would Verbum have placed the 3rd ed. vs. the newer one?
On this same train, I have no interest in revised editions of Verbum resources post-1958 Coup.
Enjoy the Simulacrum if you must but call it the sect which it is: "Novus Ordo".
For those Catholics who wish to not apostasize: Please keep Verbum "Catholic" (ie. pre-1958).
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I'm new to Verbum, having lived in the Accordance world for the last decade after I made the switch from Windows to Mac and my Catholic Logos software was stuck as a Windows only offering.
I'm a simple layman in the pew with an interest in the occasional Bible study. My needs are modest. I would like to see the Ignatius Study Bible have an "2nd Update" collection since there have now been 4 additional OT volumes Scott Hahn and company have published through Ignatius Press.
I'd also like to see the Didache Bible from Ignatius available given all the wonderful linkages into the Catechism contained therein. If there was ever a use case for the hyperlink functionality of Verbum/Logos for the average Catholic, it would seem the Didache RSVCE2 would be it.
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Patrick,
Welcome to the Verbum software and thanks for taking a moment to share some of your recent history and books you'd like to see in the software.
An update to the Ignatius Study Bible is on my list of content to get for Verbum. The Didache Bible is also a great suggestion too. We'll see what we can do there.
Yours in the Faith,
Craig
Craig St. Clair | Verbum Product Manager |
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Thanks for the response. I see references to books that are in "pre pub" and need "x" more to sign up to push them into production. Is that "pre pub" list somewhere that anybody can view it? (The Didache, being I believe the same base Ignatius Bible RSVCE2 as what you already off with the Ignatius Study Bible collection, would presumably be less expensive to put into production if the only portion you need to concern yourself with is the footnote links to the Catechism - which is of course already in your catalog as well.)
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Patrick,
Yes, you can view all of the pre-pubs in the Verbum store:
More info on the pre-pub program here: https://verbum.com/about/pre-publication
It's a great way to get books at a great price and support the addition of new texts to the Verbum library.
Enjoy,
Craig
Craig St. Clair | Verbum Product Manager |
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Take a look at the reviews on Amazon for this: https://www.amazon.com/Didache-Bible-Commentaries-Catechism-Catholic/dp/1939231140/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1518797597&sr=8-1&keywords=didache+bible+ignatius+press&dpID=41I9QZMQGRL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch
That's AWFULLY GLOWING praise across quite a lot of folks. I don't know how you're going to go wrong with this one. Plus it links into the Catechism which is already part of even your Starter set - so even the "lightly invested" in Verbum would see immediate benefit and applicability in their library.
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Hi Craig,
On a similar note, I was wondering if there were any plans for your staff to look at the possibility of adding the Knox Bible. This has been garnering votes on Uservoice for many years and is still the most requested resource there. The translation is absolutely majestic and would make a wonderful addition to Verbum.
https://www.baroniuspress.com/book.php?wid=56&bid=60#tab=tab-1
Thank you!
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