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Annual lectionary

Computer-readable versions of the Common Worship Lectionary 2007 to 2008

Notice Wednesday 5th December 2007 Following our announcement of a few days ago about the errors found in the "Outlook" version, the corrected versions of the downloadable lectionary are now published below. The "Excel" version is now simplified, and is presented as a csv file rather than as an Excel worksheet. If you downloaded the worksheet and are having problems with dates or macro-functioning, we recommend you download the "Excel" version again.

Introduction

Church House Publishing annually publishes a booklet which presents the recommended Bible readings (references only) for every day and principal festival worked out for that particular year. Readings for weekdays are also included. The most recent publication covers the period from Advent 2007 to Advent 2008. It is available in both a standard booklet size and a large format.

A new electronic experiment

In 2001, the Liturgical Publishing Group authorized a one year experiment to make available the text of the Lectionary 2001 to 2002 as an electronic file to download. Since it was an experiment, the file was made available free of charge. Usually such "value added" material would not be provided freely - payment would be required. The experiment proved such a success that the lectionary has been provided every year since.

The official background

Once again, the lectionary has been made available for free despite the fact that payment would normally be required for such "value added" material. Following the conclusion of the 2001-2002 lectionary experiment, a survey was conducted with users and a report drafted. The survey allowed a handful of positive changes for the download to be identified (see below) as well as providing an analysis of the possible impact of the download on sales of the printed publications.

In future years, it is likely that the lectionary downloads will come with a price attached. However, for the time being at least, the downloads have been made available free of charge. Such an approach also recognises that, for the moment, this project is still experimental while we work to find the best format and solution for the widest number of users and needs.

The two versions

There are two files to choose from. You can download the 'Outlook' format (which is optimised for electronic calendars, and Microsoft Outlook® in particular) or the 'Excel' format, which is a more traditional spreadsheet format that could be more easily used in software like Microsoft Excel®. 

Misuse of data

While these files provide the 2007-2008 lectionary data free-of-charge, users should not interpret this provision as a licence to break copyright restrictions. The material, like the rest of Common Worship, is subject to copyright restrictions. Please use the information on the copyright page, the Copyright Notice page for the dynamic Daily Prayer provision and the downloadable file A Brief Guide to Liturgical Copyright to ensure that you are using Common Worship in a responsible way. If you have any queries about copyright or wish to enquire about obtaining permission to use this material, please email Church House Publishing.

Please note that, while there is technically nothing stopping you from forwarding the files to all your friends via email, we would prefer you to encourage them to visit this site directly. Our ability to sustain this provision is reliant on the honesty of our users.

Using CSV files

The lectionary tables have been provided as CSV files. CSV files can be understood by almost all kinds of spreadsheet software. However, as a simple text based format, they do not tend to retain complex formatting. You may need to adjust column widths and other settings to make the file easy to read on your own machine.

In order to pull the lectionary information into your electronic calendar, you need to make use of the "Import" facilities that your calendar provides - consult your own software documentation to find out how.

Please note that although the files have been described as "Outlook" and "Excel", this is purely for shorthand purposes to distinguish between the two files. In no way is it meant to signify that non-Microsoft products are excluded from this provision.

Please note that we encourage you to download the README files as well so that you have the best available help and advice on using the individual files.

How do I download the files?

To use these files properly, save them to your hard disk. In order to save the files to your hard drive (on a PC), right-click on the download link and choose 'save target as' (if using Internet Explorer) or 'save link as' (if using Netscape).

Lastly, please note that the CSV files are each approximately 150kb in size. It should certainly take no more than five minutes on an average 56kbps modem to complete downloading.

Palm version

Simon Kershaw has produced a palm version of these downloads and made his work available online. Visit kershaw.org.uk/palm to find out more.