The American Theological Library Association (Atla) [1] is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3), professional association, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Atla's member libraries and librarians provide resources for scholarly research to tens of thousands of students, faculty, staff, and administrators. The association supports the membership with services and products, including an annual conference, members-only publications and discounts, and professional development opportunities.
The mission of Atla is to foster the study of theology and religion by enhancing the development of theological and religious studies libraries and librarianship. Established in 1946, Atla is governed by an elected board of directors and has over 800 individual, institutional, and affiliate members.
The first step toward the creation of Atla came at the 1946 biennial meeting of the American Association of Theological Schools when presidents and deans in attendance asked the AATS executive committee to call a conference of theological librarians. In June 1947, fifty theological librarians, one president, and one dean met in Louisville, Kentucky, to organize a permanent association and plan the future agenda of the American Theological Library Association. The group identified six major areas to address and assigned responsibilities for them: 1. AATS Booklist, 2. Cataloging and Classification, 3. Periodical Exchange, 4. Periodical Indexing, 5. Publications, and 6. Training of Personnel.
Programs developed rapidly in the new Association, including the following milestones:
More recent activities of Atla include:
The Atla Publishing Program serves professionals engaged in librarianship and scholarly communication, students, scholars, and religious professionals in the disciplines of religion and theology by publishing original content (books, journals, newsletters, yearbooks, reports, white papers). Many of these publications include Open Access. [12]
Atla offers electronic resources to support the scholarly study of religion and theology, including the Atla Religion Database (Atla RDB), AtlaSerials (Atlas), and AtlaSerials PLUS (Atlas PLUS).
Atla also oversees historical archives initiatives and works with several publishing partners to offer electronic versions of specialized bibliographic and reference products.
Atla provides products for students, scholars, researchers, faculty, and religious leaders conducting research.
A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users.
Frank Kaufmann is the director of the Inter Religious Federation for World Peace (IRFWP). He served as editor in chief of the IRFWP's academic journal Dialogue and Alliance from 1998 until 2009, during which time, in 2004 was named as one of the top ten religion journals by an independent panel commissioned by the American Theological Library Association (ATLA)
American Psychologist is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the American Psychological Association. The journal publishes articles of broad interest to psychologists, including empirical reports and scholarly reviews covering science, practice, education, and policy, and occasionally publishes special issues on relevant topics in the field of psychology. The editor-in-chief is Harris Cooper.
Studia Islamica is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering Islamic studies focusing on the history, religion, law, literature, and language of the Muslim world, primarily of the Southwest Asian and Mediterranean regions. The editor-in-chief is Houari Touati. Articles are published in English or French.
Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering religious studies, focusing on the academic study of new religious movements. It was established in 1997 by Seven Bridges Press, initially published semi-annually, changing to tri-annually in 2003, and then quarterly in 2005. In 2002, it became published by the University of California Press.
A special library is a library that provides specialized information resources on a particular subject, serves a specialized and limited clientele, and delivers specialized services to that clientele. Special libraries include corporate libraries, government libraries, law libraries, medical libraries, museum libraries, news libraries. Special libraries also exist within academic institutions. These libraries are included as special libraries because they are often funded separately from the rest of the university and they serve a targeted group of users.
The Atla Religion Database is an index of academic journal articles in the area of religion. It is updated monthly and published by the American Theological Library Association. The database indexes articles, essays, and book reviews related to a wide range of scholarly fields related to religion. The database is available on a subscription basis through a database aggregator.
Africa is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African Institute. The journal covers the study of African societies and culture. The journal was established in 1928 and the editors-in-chief are Julie Archambault and Joost Fontein.
The American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly is a peer-reviewed academic journal sponsored by the American Catholic Philosophical Association. It was founded in 1927 as The New Scholasticism and adopted its current title in 1990. The journal publishes articles and book reviews covering the entire range and history of Western philosophical thought. Contributions on non-Western philosophy are also published, especially if they shed light upon issues in the Western tradition. The journal is not committed to any particular school of philosophy and contributions variously employ analytical, phenomenological, Thomistic, historical, and other methods. Nevertheless, it typically prefers contributions on topics or thinkers that are of special interest to Catholic thought. Thus, almost every issue usually carries at least one article on Thomas Aquinas. Pieces on medieval thought are well represented as well, as are essays in the philosophy of religion and philosophical theology.
Early American Literature is a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal published by the University of North Carolina Press on behalf of the Society of Early Americanists and the Forum on Early American Literature of the Modern Language Association, covering on the study of early American literature, including Native American and French, British, Dutch, German, and Spanish colonial writing. It was established in 1966 as the Early American Literature Newsletter, obtaining its current title in 1968. The editor-in-chief is Marion Rust.
The Journal of Shi'a Islamic Studies is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on Shia Islam, including theology, philosophy, mysticism, law, jurisprudence, politics, history, Qur'an and Hadith studies, and current issues relevant to Shi'ism. It is published by ICAS Press on behalf of The Islamic College and was established in 2008. The journal also contains a book reviews section to review new and old works pertaining to Shi'a Islam.
CrossCurrents is a quarterly academic journal published by the Association for Public Religion and Intellectual Life. It has been published continuously since 1950, and is now published as a peer-reviewed, public-facing scholarly journal.
Religious and Theological Abstracts is a database that indexes many religious and theological journals and other literature. In 2005, one Guide to Research described it as a "popular reference" covering more than 600 periodicals in most major European languages beginning in 1958. It covers "a wide array of periodical literature, including Christian, Jewish, and other world religions and some denominational and popular religious magazines."
Augustinianum is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering the study of the Fathers of the Church. Since 1961 the journal has published over 3,800 articles and reviews in this field. The journal is edited by Antonio Gaytán and published by the Patristic Institute Augustinianum (Rome). Online access to all issues is provided by the Philosophy Documentation Center.
Bibliothèques européennes de théologie is an ecumenical federation of European national theological library associations as well as single libraries. The association was founded in 1961 and has a legal registration in Kampen, Netherlands. BETH aims to contribute to the development of theological libraries in Europe by building networks, establishing contacts, supporting and promoting cooperation between European theological libraries, and working for the preservation of the rich cultural patrimony founded in them. BETH has member associations and libraries in 15 European countries. Each year BETH organizes an annual meeting in different European cities. The topics of the annual meetings reflect the challenges of modern theological librarianship like the future of the theological libraries, digitization, open access, information literacy, etc.
Atlaserials (Atlas) is an online full-text collection of major religion and theology journals used by libraries, librarians, religion scholars, theologians, and clergy. Created by the American Theological Library Association and updated monthly, the database indexes journal articles and bibliographic citations, featuring PDFs, with searchable texts of articles and reviews, related to a wide range of scholarly fields related to religion. The database is available on a subscription basis through a database aggregator.
John B. Weaver is the dean of library services and educational technology at Abilene Christian University.
Studia Islamika is a triannual peer-reviewed open access academic journal covering Islamic studies, especially concerning Indonesia and Southeast Asia in general. It was established in 1994 and is published by the Center for the Study of Islam and Society. The editor-in-chief is Azyumardi Azra. Articles are published in English or Arabic.
The Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion (JMSR) is a peer-reviewed academic journal on management, spirituality and religion. It is published five times per year and contains scholarly articles regarding the spiritual and religious aspects of managing and organizing. The journal was established in 2004 and published by Routledge until January 2021. The editor-in-chief is Kathryn Pavlovich.
Mannix Library is an academic theological library located in East Melbourne, Australia. The library specialises in the areas of theology, philosophy, biblical studies and associated disciplines, and supports teaching and research at Catholic Theological College and the wider University of Divinity. The student body includes candidates for ordination, lay men and women, undergraduate, postgraduate and higher degree by research students, and members of the general public. The library uses OCLC's World Share Management System.
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