The St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology (
saet.ac.uk) is a free online reference work dedicated to widening access to theological scholarship. With more than 200 peer-reviewed articles already published, the Encyclopaedia is a readily available resource for students, academics, members of faith-based institutions, and interested laypeople. In this session, a member of the SAET editorial team will share some reflections on the opportunities and challenges involved in building an open-access theological encyclopaedia for the 21st century. How has the publication’s online format and open-access philosophy shaped its presentation, rights management, and information preservation strategies (including metadata and use of the Text Encoding Initiative)? As a multi-author reference work with hundreds of contributors, how are articles managed and organized? The Encyclopaedia’s integration into the scholarly informational ecosystem has been an important consideration as well. What are the advantages and drawbacks of the encyclopaedic format for discoverability and indexing? Feedback and suggestions from attendees concerning how the Encyclopaedia can most effectively connect with library users and systems will be warmly welcomed.
Learning Outcome
This presentation will give attendees behind-the-scenes insight into the development of a scholarly theological resource which may be relevant to their own work in theological librarianship and/or to those in their network (e.g. learners, researchers, library users). The session will provide food for thought around how existing information management and indexing strategies can provide both opportunities and barriers to making theological information more available, with the hope that attendees will be prompted to consider ways in which alternative formats can be embraced in the context of their own work.
Audience Engagement
The presentation will tell the story of the St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology so far in a light-hearted and approachable way. The purpose of the session is not to give a tech demonstration or merely show a product, but instead to go deeper into the questions and considerations we’ve faced as an academic-led encyclopaedia project, inviting the perspective and expertise of the audience on the issues discussed.
