The American Theological Library Association is a non-profit organization that for over 60 years has been providing access to the scholarly literature of religion and preserving it for future generations. In 1957, recognizing the rapid rate of deterioration of 19th and early 20th century monographs and journals in religion, ATLA established its Serials Preservation Program. To date, ATLA has coordinated the filming of more than 3,200 journals and since 1985 ATLA’s Monograph Preservation Program has preserved more than 30,000 core titles in religion. This work has been carried out with the support of individual libraries, library consortia, and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and other agencies.

Some Notable ATLA Preservation Collections

Religious Periodical Literature of the Hispanic and Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, 1850–1985
This collection targets periodicals devoted to Hispanic and Indigenous religion in North and Latin America, published during the period 1850–1985. The literature is significant for understanding the long history of religious traditions among Indigenous peoples in the Americas and for understanding the more recent growth and development of new movements in Hispanic religious traditions. The preservation work for this grant is still underway.

African American Religious Serials, 1850–1950
The titles included are foundational for understanding the development of the African American church in the 20th century.  Supplementing the periodical literature are titles from two other key areas: (1) annual reports and publications of African American churches and (2) reports from African American social service agencies.

Christianity’s Encounter with World Religions, 1850–1950
This collection is representative of non-Christian, missionary, and syncretistic religious journals documenting three areas:

1. the dramatic commitment to missions that North American churches demonstrated at the turn of the 19th century;
   
2. the initial journals available in North America representing the theological viewpoint of non-Western religions; and
   
3. titles that chronicle Western and non-Western religions.

Follow this link to ATLA’s catalog.

Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative (CDRI): Open Access Digital Teaching Resources on Religion

The Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative (CDRI) of ATLA and the Association of Theological Schools is a repository of open access digital resources contributed by ATLA member libraries. The CDRI database provides access to digital images of woodcuts, photographs, slides, papyri, coins, maps, postcards, manuscripts, lithographs, sermons, shape-note tune books, and various other forms of Christian art, architecture, and iconography.

Access to CDRI is free: http://www.atla.com/digitalresources/
For further information, please contact sales@atla.com.