Atla Annual 2024

Come hear from Atla's Products team for updates on content and scope of our trusted research tools for the scholarly study of religion and theology, including Atla Religion Database® (Atla RDB®) — the premier index in all fields of religion, as well as AtlaSerials® (Atlas®), and AtlaSerials PLUS® (Atlas PLUS®) — the go-to full-text collections of journals in diverse areas of religion and theology.

The update will include a presentation by Lianghao Liu, an Atla Metadata Editor and Subject Matter Expert on Asian religion and philosophy. Lianghao will discuss several journals that he indexes on these topics and how they complement the broader geographical coverage and wider audience in our database. We will also hold an interactive Q&A session.

Registration for this event must be completed via email invitation. Emails invitations will be sent to in-person attendees.

There are solid strategic reasons for libraries to continue collecting materials in print format, but these may not always be obvious to institutional administrators and others outside the library. I will present a way to make this case on one sheet that is hopefully easy for non-librarians to understand. I will also offer ideas of when and where to present this case.

“What do we do about AI?” Although we all wrestle with this question at some level, the need to address the issue of AI in the classroom is particularly acute. AI use for class assignments presents challenges far beyond the typical concerns about plagiarism detection, including issues with pedological, and moral and ethical implications. The faculty at Sacred Heart Seminary and School of Theology reached out to library staff with a multitude of questions: What do I need to know? Is there an AI detector? Do we need a policy addressing AI separate from our plagiarism policy? Should seminarians be permitted to use it? Do I need to change my assignments? These urgent questions and more demanded action. This session will outline the steps taken by the library and seminary faculty to begin to address these questions, starting with a faculty development session and creating a LibGuide of “teaching with AI” resources.

Every librarian is a philosopher, and librarians have a worldview: a philosophy through which life is viewed. Philosophy propels lifestyles.

If philosophy drives all components of life, including professional endeavors, what does it look like if we desire to love our neighbor? Is it possible to develop a philosophy of professional activities such as cataloging or acquisitions so that librarians display love through them? Developing philosophies is critical for the profession and specifically for individuals aiming to love one another through librarianship.

If librarians are philosophers, should librarians develop their philosophy? A personal philosophy is an individual's thoughts, beliefs, concepts, and attitudes about everything. As God created each one uniquely, one's philosophy will be unique. A personal philosophy does not presume that no one will agree with your premises; it assumes that their application will be distinct based on context, experience, preferences, and other components. Taking this assumption, the presenter explores what a personal philosophy of reference may look like. To do this, one must ask: has any work been done in this area?

Examples of personal reference philosophies are nonexistent in LIS and works discussing a general philosophy of reference are limited. This gap needs to be addressed. This presentation provides a brief overview of the literature displaying that gap. It then develops three fundamental premises for creating a personal philosophy of reference: how one views knowledge, relationships, and people. While the literature touches upon these, their lack of development leaves more questions than answers. A philosophy of reference may further empower a librarian to use reference interviews to display love for their neighbor. The presentation will close with the presenter's philosophy of reference, arguing that this is critical for loving one’s neighbor through a reference interview.

The basis of this presentaion is a recently published article:

Radcliffe, B., & Trott, G. (2024) Reflecting Deeply: Why a Philosophy of Reference Services Should Direct Every RI. Library Philosophy & Practice, 8078. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/8078.

This presentation addresses ways to engage students while teaching the history of the book within a theological library context. The first part of the presentation considers the importance of teaching the history of the book in a theological or religious education setting. Most of the skills and trades involved in bookmaking have been forgotten today, thus incorporating some of the basic principles of book production and printing illuminates the cultural contexts in which books were made. The second part of the presentation looks at tools and technologies that are useful for teaching the history of the book. In addition to books or manuscripts, this includes traditional printing equipment (e.g., printing press, type, composing sticks, and ink balls) as well as new technology that can replicate or illustrate aspects of the printing process (CNC woodcuts, 3d printing, and photopolymer plates). The third section addresses hands-on activities that demonstrate various aspects of bookmaking, such as pulling a print on a printing press and creating an octavo book from a printed sheet. The approaches covered in this presentation connect the old world of books with the growing movement in libraries to be spaces for creative thinking and innovation.

Most librarians must confront the daunting task of weeding/pruning/deselection the library’s collection. There is a wealth of literature showing that pruning is a win-win-win situation for library patron, collection, and librarian. There is also plenty of information about what kind of principles librarians should employ when evaluating a collection. However, when the rubber met the road, I found that all my research had left me unprepared for some of the practical and logistical challenges. This presentation is intended to show the practical lessons I learned while conducting a major pruning project, which lasted approximately 6 months and resulted in the pruning of more than 12,000 titles. While I learned these lessons in an academic setting, many can be applied in other types of libraries as well.

How should theological librarians think about and respond to the advent of AI in theological education? What role(s) might theological librarians have in this brave new world? How is AI similar to, and different from, other information technology revolutions (writing, printing, the internet)? Should institutions of theological education consider pursing a kind of new monasticism, leaving the decadent dystopia into which we seem to be heading for the purity of quill and parchment? While we may be unable to provide definite answers, this session will at least offer a forum for raising, considering, and discussing these and related questions.

Authority is constructed and contextual. Thus spake the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy (2016), an assertion that rightly guides information and media literacy instructors as we form and inform students, empowering them to navigate an ecosystem rife with mis- and disinformation. Yet as danah boyd famously argues in her 2018 SXSW EDU keynote, how we teach media literacy can become an “assertion of authority over epistemology” that undermines skills we intend to sharpen by not recognizing and valuing fundamental differences among how individuals within communities make sense of the world(s) we inhabit. Just as authority is constructed and contextual, so also are evaluation and interpretation, sense-making constructs that determine how, why, and where we consume and create information. boyd asks, “How do we teach across epistemologies?” At ATLA 2024, Heath Rosser and Chris Rosser engage boyd and her critics to describe the mess of epistemology and ethics in media literacy instruction; we then suggest how instructors might leave the mess, offering seven pedagogical pivots that promote community and trust as exemplified by two gamified courses, a media literacy course called Eat, Play, Love and a course entitled Worldbuilding. Participants will: 1) identify current challenges for media literacy instruction; 2) encounter gameful design as a pedagogical strategy for navigating challenges; and 3) be challenged to attend to how we think about and encounter other minds, whether mediated digitally or face to face. We believe our use of media and of devices that mediate a tethering of self to a world of others can initiate among us generative orientations necessary for human (well) being, even across epistemologies.

Brief history of CRRA as a stand-alone organization, the transition to CRRA as a program within Atla, and future developments of the program. Presenters will include both Atla staff and members of the CRRA Program Advisory Committee

This presentation will compare several methods for determining whether seminary library databases are meeting the information needs of students and faculty. Reports of low usage of online databases have persisted since the beginning of online databases. However, the accuracy of these reports is questionable. Here, I illustrate a very direct method of accessing usage, i.e., student papers, and compare them to available statistical reports from database vendors. The purpose is to help seminary libraries respond to Standard 6.5 for the Association of Theological Schools, which asks that we document that the informational needs of students are being met.

The turn toward digital resources has come with blessings and challenges. Electronic journals are quickly accessible and have, more or less, diminished the need for print journal collections. Electronic books afford simultaneous usage from an entire class and so can offer an affordable textbook alternative. In addition, the move toward Open Educational Resources, is also facilitated by digital resources. Nevertheless, theological libraries (like other humanities disciplines) still see a valid need for physical, printed books and resources. In this conversation, I want to facilitate a discussion concerning methods and modes for weeding library collections with a focus on the way that the physical collection will be used in the future. The weeding of a library is not only a part of routine maintenance, but it also should be responsive to the needs of library patrons. The increase in digital materials, even digital theological materials, presents opportunities and challenges for weeding collections.

This session will provide an overview of some of the recent enhancements to EBSCO’s New User Interface, including the Atla Scripture Authority, as well as a preview of some of the features on our roadmap. The New User Interface has been developed with the fundamental approach of listening to customers, conducting user research and learning from data. We hope that this session will inspire discussion around the present and future state of the Atla Research databases on EBSCO.

As a hub for learning, the theological library facilitates the resourcing and delivery of academic material on campus. Within this setting, library staff serve at the forefront of curating content to support student objectives. The advent of Artificial Intelligence has led libraries to analyze anew the meaning of information literacy as students increasingly turn to this recent technology to research, analyze and disseminate their knowledge. Fundamental to this discussion are 1) the challenges and opportunities for information literacy in light of student AI usage and 2) library and institutional policies that will guide students to be information literate in an ethical and responsible fashion.

Intended for any audience, this will be a beginner’s guide to inclusively interacting with transgender patrons in a library setting. We hope to present information about creating a welcoming environment and providing resources to transgender persons. Meant to be an informational session regardless of institutional background or religious identity, the presenters will relay a selection of key terms and points of awareness relevant to the transgender community.
We do not intend this to be a discussion on the validity or authenticity of identities, but rather a guide to interactions that allow professionals to become familiar with best customer service models that will result in a reduction of library anxiety for a specific population.

What are our obligations to our organization as we begin to think about the next steps in our professional life? Should we start thinking about those who will succeed us in our job? Perhaps it may not be that, but will there be someone who could take some of your responsibilities while you are on a sabbatical or vacation? What will the library be like if we leave? If we leave, will the administration take this as a way to downsize the library? As we think about the transitions and career moves in our life, succession planning may be something to consider. This session will talk about identifying and developing skills within the library staff and mentoring them not only for our library but for future jobs they may have. We will also examine ways in which we can begin to mentor our supervisor to help manage the transitions and changes that will inevitably arise when we leave. There will be time spent in discussion.

Liberation theologies are not monolithic, varying widely across geography and denominations. That rich diversity, however, is rarely reflected in the catalog with subject headings, or on the shelves with limited classification options. This presents a significant challenge to researchers seeking resources on specific types of Liberation Theology.

In this session, Déborah Ortiz-Rivera will first introduce the audience to the history and diversity of Liberation Theologies from both the perspectives of geography and denomination/tradition. Specifically, this introduction will focus on the differences present in various regions of Latin America and between Catholic and Protestant denominations. Building on this groundwork, Brinna Michael will outline a two-fold project undertaken at Pitts Theology Library to address significant gaps in the representation of Liberation Theology in the catalog and stacks. First, Ortiz-Rivera and Michael supplemented existing subject headings with additional geographic and denominational context to improve the search and discovery experience for patrons. Second, they developed a local expansion of the official Library of Congress Classifications for Liberation (BT83.57), Hispanic American (BT83.575), and Mujerista (BT83.583) Theologies to include further subdivisions, including General works (.A1), General special (.A2), and By region or country (.A3-Z).

Since I began working in theological libraries in 1993, I have repeatedly grappled with the work and purpose of the theological library. I often wondered if I am making a difference in how students are being prepared for ministry. Now as a library director, even though students tell me they are satisfied with the library, is there more the library can do?

This paper is based on my D.Min. thesis completed in May 2023 in which I grappled with these ideas. I focused my research on the Bechtold Library at Catholic Theological Union where I am the library director, to explore the extent to which aspects of decoloniality affect the practices of a theological library and its diverse student body, and student research needs.

Keeping, producing, and providing knowledge were the three essential roles I devised for librarians, but each comes with cultural assumptions about what should be kept in a library, the types of knowledge the library should help produce and services the library should provide. My research included a survey of CTU students on their use of the library as well as a survey of Atla library directors to get a different perspective on theological libraries. I will include my research in the presentation.

Finally, as a member of Western society, I am keenly aware the CTU library carries a legacy of colonial thought which has shaped the existing library collection and influences the knowledge produced by library users. I used the work of Kwok Pui-Lan and others to look through decolonial and postcolonial lenses to reveal injustices in the way the CTU library keeps, produces, and provides knowledge to inform possible interventions a library could take within these three essential roles.

Art has long been part of sacred texts in many religious faiths, especially as decorative, stylized, and illuminated calligraphy. How scripture was presented aesthetically carried sacred significance. In modern times, it is common to leave artistic expression of scripture to either paid professionals or children - but writing, illustrating, or artistically responding to scripture can be a devotional practice available to anyone. In this session, we will be discussing and practicing ways to recover artistic expression that engages with sacred texts as inspiration and medium, providing examples of “creatio divina” in practice, discussing ways to engage students through related active and passive programming, and providing the opportunity for attendees to engage with scriptures of their choice by meditatively writing out the texts and illustrating or illuminating them. Participants will then be invited to a time of voluntary sharing with a small group to display their work and tell about the meaning they gained from the text they chose to use. This session will be accessible to a variety of religious traditions by allowing participants to choose their own sacred text to work with. In-person attendees will be provided with supplies; online attendees are encouraged to have art supplies (paper, pencils, markers, chalk, glue, scissors, and whatever else they feel drawn to use) at hand. Attendees are also encouraged to post pictures of their work on social media and tag the conference!