A fundamental strength of Atla’s research tools is the applied expertise of Atla’s team of metadata editors and analysts. Atla’s metadata analysts and editors synthesize research from a wide range of academic resources and make decisions about the most relevant subjects to include in the records in our databases to support discovery by our community of researchers and students. Their depth of knowledge ensures that Atla’s research tools support the successful discovery of relevant research from a highly diverse range of academic sources.
This month we feature Metadata Analyst Benjamin Taylor
Ben was born and raised in the small town of Morton in central Illinois. Raised in the Lutheran Church, he decided at a young age to become a Lutheran pastor, and he attended Valparaiso University to pursue that goal. Once at college, however, he was increasingly drawn to the academic study of theology, and he decided to pivot his career track toward becoming a theologian. After receiving his Bachelor’s Degree in Theology from Valparaiso, he attended Vanderbilt Divinity School, where he earned his Master of Theological Studies degree in 2014. His passion for the study of theology remained after he started his career, and this past May, he earned his Doctorate in Theology from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.
While earning his master’s degree, Ben spent a summer indexing materials for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. This gave him experience and insight into the world of metadata. He gained additional experience in this field by working as a part-time reference librarian while completing his doctorate.
This experience and his expertise in theology made him an ideal candidate when a temporary, part-time position on the Metadata team opened at Atla in October 2019. Atla Metadata Analyst May May Latt took note of the position and recommended that her friend Ben apply for the job. Upon joining the team, Ben found that he thoroughly enjoyed the work, and when a full-time position opened on the Metadata team in January 2022, Ben gladly accepted it. Atla has been fortunate to enjoy the benefits of his expertise in this role ever since.
Ben indexes a wide variety of material in his role as metadata analyst. When he began his part-time role, he typically indexed Christian material, but in his full-time role, he is currently working primarily on titles related to Judaism. He indexes in five languages: English, German, Hebrew, Spanish, and Portuguese. He is primarily self-taught in reading these languages, though he appreciates the fact that he now has an excuse to flex the linguistic muscles he gained when he was required to pass a German language exam to earn his Ph.D. In addition to his work with Atla, Ben is an adjunct professor at Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa.
When asked to describe the role he sees Atla filling in the religion and theology space, Ben said,
Atla is critical to the academic study of religion and theology. When I was working as a reference librarian, I experienced first-hand how instrumental Atla is in connecting students to the research for which they were looking. Students would come into the library with merely a hunch or an abstract sense of what they wanted to write about in a research paper. Being able to point them towards Atla was an incredible gift.
We asked Ben to highlight some titles in Atla’s research tools that he has indexed
He provided us with the following recommendations, all of which he described as fascinating and insightful:
- Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues, published by Indiana University Press for Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, provides an international, interdisciplinary, and scholarly forum in Jewish women’s and gender studies, and is the only one of its kind. It creates communication channels within the Jewish women’s and gender studies community and brings forth that community’s work to a wider audience. Indexed in Atla Religion Database.
- Jewish Film & New Media, published by Wayne State University Press, provides an outlet for research into any aspect of Jewish film, television, and new media and is unique in its interdisciplinary nature, exploring the rich and diverse cultural heritage across the globe. The journal is distinctive in bringing together a range of cinemas, televisions, films, programs, and other digital material in one volume and in its positioning of the discussions within a range of contexts — the cultural, historical, textual, and many others. Indexed in Atla Religion Database.
- Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, published by Purdue University Press, publishes original, scholarly work and reviews a range of recent books in Judaica. Shofar has been published quarterly since 1981 and is served by a distinguished, international editorial board. Eligible submissions undergo a rigorous, double-blind peer review process. Indexed in Atla Religion Database.
- CCAR Journal: A Reform Jewish Quarterly, published by Central Conference of American Rabbis, seeks to explore ideas and issues of Judaism and Jewish life, primarily – but not exclusively – from a Reform Jewish perspective, in both prose and poetry. This highly regarded journal contains articles of contemporary interest to all Jews by leading members of the rabbinic, scholarly, and lay communities. It was previously published under the name Journal of Reform Judaism. Indexed in Atla Religion Database.
- Western States Jewish History, published by Western States Jewish History Association, is the multidisciplinary journal of the Western States Jewish History Association, an organization dedicated to the discovery, collection, and dissemination of items and information pertaining to the Jewish experience in the American West. The geographic region includes states west of the Mississippi, as well as Western Canada, Mexico, Hawaii, and the Pacific Rim.
Find more information about coverage and how to access Atla’s trusted research tools on religion and theology.
View our full title lists, updated monthly.
Read more information on how content is evaluated and how to recommend a title for inclusion in Atla’s research tools.
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