Websites on Religion LibGuide
The Atla Websites on Religion (WOR) LibGuide is a growing, selective, annotated collection of web resources for the study of religion.
Navigating the Guide
The guide emphasizes world religions, including Christianity as a global religion (World Religions). It also emphasizes the intersection of religion with important topics of the day (Intersections). Given the “textual” nature of many religions, the study of Sacred Texts remains an emphasis. In keeping with the guide’s origin at the Wabash Center, Teaching / Learning theology and religion is also an intended highlight. Information relevant to librarians collaborating on this guide are located under the “Collecting & Connecting” tab, which includes links to other religion guides and information on open access aggregators.
History
The genesis of WOR goes back to 1998 when Charles Bellinger created “The Guide to Internet Resources for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion” (known simply as “The Internet Guide”). In consultation with the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion, Bellinger categorized and annotated lists of links to free high-quality websites judged as useful, current, and reliable. It covered relevant bibliographies, journals, liturgies, reference resources, software, texts, and websites of scholars and organizations.
The Internet Guide evolved into a useful resource that was nearly exhaustive. Eventually, the site morphed from static lists into a “database.” The links were “tagged” with relevant metadata and grouped with other relevant resources. After 2014, the site was no longer consistently maintained, and in 2018 Atla began hosting the site locally.
In the Summer of 2019 Atla appointed James Darlack, Director of Goddard Library at the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary as an editor whose charge was the construction of a new “Websites on Religion” resource within Atla’s LibGuides — a platform familiar to librarians and the academic communities they serve. This would also allow WOR to evolve into a community resource, maintained by members of Atla’s interest groups such as the Public Services Interest Group and the World Religions Interest Group. The process of creating WOR involved constructing a new hierarchy of topics and reviewing the existing content on the Internet Guide for currency, relevancy, accuracy, and completeness.