Atla Annual 2025

Sensitivity readers have been utilized by authors, editors, and publishers for some time, but have gained the attention of the press in recent years. Seen by some as polarizing, a sensitivity reader is asked to identify parts of a written text that may be perceived as inappropriate or harmful to some readers, particularly those identifying with underrepresented populations. While this practice is more commonly associated with fiction writing, scholarly publishers are beginning to incorporate the practice. Members of the Books@Atla Open Press editorial board will reflect on their experiences with feedback from a sensitivity reader and how they are incorporating this practice into their editorial workflow.

Learning Outcome

Attendees will learn about sensitivity reading, what it is and how it is done. They will also learn about how sensitivity reading is applied to writing on librarianship, theology, and religious studies. We also seek to educate attendees on the Books@Atla Open Press editorial workflow in a more detailed setting that will not be possible in the joint Atla Open Press editor-in-chief panel.

Audience Engagement

While this will be a presentation of information, we hope to facilitate discussion among attendees about the merits of sensitivity reading and how this practice may be further tailored for our scholarly field of theological and religious studies librarianship. We are very interested in listening and receiving feedback from attendees about what is important to them about sensitivity reading.

Securing funding for Open Educational Resources (OER) and digitization projects can be a
transformative opportunity for theological libraries. The Scholarly Communications and Digital Initiatives Committee will hold a panel of successful past grant recipients to discuss their challenges and lessons learned in the process of both applying for the Atla grants, and successfully completing their projects. Together this panel will explore the complexities of navigating funding applications, institutional priorities, and project logistics.

Learning Outcome


Audience Engagement

The attendees will have an opportunity to ask questions from the panelists through the open Q&A and will also be invited to participate in some interactive polling to understand their familiarity with the Atla grants.

The paper discusses how learners’ epistemological beliefs may have impacts on their learning progress and their attitudes to learning-related activities (Hofer, 2004). Epistemological beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing are known to facilitate or constrain learners’ understanding, reasoning, thinking, learning, and achievement (Conley et al., 2004).

In particular, this paper focuses on the impacts of learners’ epistemological beliefs on instructional practice that means teaching-related activities. The assumption is that learners’ beliefs about knowing may influence their attitudes towards every aspect of their learning and teaching-related activities. The learners’ epistemological beliefs may also be affected and adjusted by the instructional practice they experienced.

This paper proposes that understanding learners’ epistemological beliefs is beneficial for an institute that includes teachers and libraries both. The library, who is not only a collector of resources but also becoming a learning-related service provider is better aware of these beliefs. Whatever programs and activities a library offers will be utilized the best when a library knows the learners the most.

Specifically, this paper demonstrates different research studies including the author’s. Rooted in the field of social science, their purposes focused on how explicitly a learner’s epistemological beliefs shape their perception related to learning and how they accept certain activities as learning experiences. And the studies found that (1)those with a broader epistemological belief tend to grasp a more comprehensive perception of learning and (2) those with a broader epistemological belief tend to find a typical daily event more meaningful.

Finally, the paper discusses how the findings in those studies can be applicable and helpful to the libraries in the field of religious and theological education that is facing so many changes and challenges.

Learning Outcome

As a librarian's job is to collect knowledge, to connect resources, and to help teachers and learners, this topic, while not the most practical, should be able to offer insights that will help librarians' contextual understanding deeper and richer.

Audience Engagement

Frequent interaction through questions and answers will be made during the talk.

Librarians are constantly being asked to do more with less, especially when it comes to maintaining library collections on a reduced budget. One way that librarians can increase their periodical collections without spending more on journal subscriptions is by adding open access (OA) journals to their library’s holdings. But how does one identify and evaluate what is available? In his Atla Annual 2021 Listen and Learn session titled “Open Access Religious Resources for your Students,” Jeff Siemon shared his collection of approximately 800 OA religion journals. Siemon inspired me to create my own collection of Catholic OA religion journals, i.e. journals of religion and/or theology published by Catholic institutions and/or containing primarily Catholic content. Later that year, I presented my collection of 146 journals at the Catholic Library Association’s Fall Conference. Four years later, my collection has nearly doubled. I will describe how I found these journals, highlighting specific journal indexes, including a comparison between the Directory of Open Access Journals and the Atla Religion Database. I also present updated analyses of journals by continent and country, by language, and by subject, highlighting remarkable trends. Lastly, I will discuss gaps and challenges in the Catholic OA religion journal publishing landscape.

Learning Outcome

Attendees will gain a greater awareness of what Catholic OA religion journals are currently available.

Audience Engagement

I will engage the audience primarily through charts breaking down the collection by continent and country, language, and subject, presented as slides.

Eager to participate in scholarly conversation and circulate your ideas among a growing readership? The Editors-in-Chief from Books, Theological Librarianship, and TCB will share how you can publish with Atla Open Press. They will present on the scope of each of their publications, demystify the proposal process, share what happens during editing, and offer tips on what makes a successful publication.

Learning Outcome

Attendees will have a greater understanding of Atla Open Press and will receive encouragement to consider writing, editing, and publishing to further their professional development and contribute to the guild.

Audience Engagement

Each EIC will be responsible for their own portion of the panel. Engagement may take the form of slide shows, live Press website demonstrations, audience polling, and audience questions.

As a subject specialist librarian working at large research university, I often find when I’m attending an ABTAPL (Association of Theological and Philosophical Librarians in the UK & Ireland) event that I am the only one in the room with this kind of role. I wanted to find out why. Are other university librarians not present in ABTAPL because their job roles make it no longer relevant for them? Are university librarians not present in ABTAPL because they are not aware of ABTAPL as an organisation? Or are other factors to blame? And what can the recent Atla Global Survey 2024 tell us about UK university librarians? To explore this, my investigation has included a literature review, data analysis and a small scale survey of UK University librarians.

Join program officer Alyson Pope from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to learn more about their digitization regranting programs: Digitizing Hidden Collections: Amplifying Unheard Voices and Recordings at Risk. Available funding ranges from 10,000 to 300,000 USD for the digital reformatting of a range of eligible analog formats.

Learning Outcome

Detailed knowledge of available funding paths for the digitization of their institution's archival materials as well as more general tips on writing successful grant proposals.

Audience Engagement

Quick surveys regarding the types of materials they have in their archives that they would be most eager to digitize and their prior experience seeking grant funding.

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



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.

After the success of the first session of this type held in 2024, the Board again invites members to join them in this session to hear more about the work they do and how the Board operates. The panel of Board officers will give insight as to what is expected of those who serve on the Board and provide additional information for those interested in serving. Come prepared to ask the panelists your questions about Board work and the role and function the Board plays in the association.

The recipients of Atla’s 2024 round of digitization grant funding will share their experiences digitizing and describing items from their special collections and archives. Attendees will not only learn more about these new digital collections that are newly available for research, teaching, and other uses but also hear about the successes and lessons learned through their projects. An overview of the Atla Digitization Grant program, which will open up again in the fall of 2025 for applications, will also be presented.

There will be time for questions about the grant program and how it supports the digitization efforts of Atla members as well as opportunities for conversation with grantees about their approaches to digitization projects.

Learning Outcome

Attendees will learn more about how to plan for and manage small digitization projects and how to apply for funding from Atla to support these projects.

Audience Engagement

There will be time for conversation and questions.

This workshop serves as an introduction to restorative justice theory and practice, including the values that undergird and support restorative initiatives. The workshop will include experiential components, small group conversations, as well as presentation/lecture. This ties into the training and process for Atla's Conduct Committee.