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Professional Development
By Wesley D. Custer, Chair

COMMITTEE MEMBERS

 • Wesley Custer, Asbury Theological Seminary, Chair

 • Yasmine Abou-El-Kheir, Chicago Theological Seminary

 • Martha Adkins, University of San Diego, Secretary

 • Michael Bradford, Harvard University

 • James Estes, Wesley Theological Seminary

 • Warren Watson, Payne Theological Seminary

 • Gillian Harrison Can, ATLA Staff Liaison

COMMITTEE ACTIVITIES AND PROGRAMS: 
The Professional Development Committee (PDC) endeavors each year 
to provide programming and information relevant to the membership 
of ATLA. One of the most significant contributions to date is the webi-
nars hosted by ATLA and sponsored by the PDC. We were able to plan 
nine webinars during the past year: 

 •  Sustainable Collection Services (SCS): A Brief Introduction by OCLC

 •  Small Libraries Collaborating to Create Information Literacy Videos by 
Susan Ebertz, Karl Stutzman, and Vance M. Thomas

 •  The (Virtual) Human Touch: Promoting the Spirit of Inquiry Through 
(Distance) Research by Melody Diehl Detar and David E. Schmersal

 • OCLC QuestionPoint by OCLC

 • Kicking Off the ATLA SACO Funnel by Richard Lammert

 •  Demystifying Digital Humanities: How Librarians Can Get Involved by 
Michael P. Hemenway and Micah D. Saxton

 •  Faculty Open Access Policies by Christine Fruin, Andrew Keck, and 
Craig R. Koester



8  ANNUAL YEARBOOK

 •  User Experience Research Outcomes by Tim Gallati

 •  Fair Use for Libraries by Christine Fruin

MEETING MINUTES
Conference Call—Sept. 14, 2017
1:05pm (Central Time)

PRESENT: Gillian Cain, Martha Adkins, Wes Custer (Chair), Yasmine 
Abou-El-Kheir, Michael Bradford, James Estes
ABSENT: Warren Watson
 
Martha Adkins will serve as secretary for the year.
 
FALL WEBINAR DISCUSSION: ideas from ATLA Annual Conference or 
other speakers or topics of interest, in combination with consultation of 
post-conference survey. Starred items are either in the works or Gillian 
will pursue for fall:

 •  *Anti-racism digital library—Anita Coleman

 •  Broad competencies for theological librarianship
 • Pick up at face-to-face meeting for development

 • *New ATLA digital library
 • Andy will do something

 • Scholarly plagiarism
 • Develop further

 • Racial/ethnic diversity

 • ATS

 • Theological schools in a time of crisis

 • Business planning

 • *Virtual/human touch

 • Ithaca

 • *Information literacy videos

 • Open educational resources
 • Develop further



Committee Reports  9

 • Terminal degree for theological librarianship

 • Linked data

 • Interpreting learning outcomes

To discuss at face-to-face meeting in Denver:

 •  Competencies—what are the next steps to make this idea more 
tangible?

 • Wabash—preconference in 2018 and Colloquy

 • Creating Leaders of Tomorrow update

 • NACO/CONSER funnels

 • Spring webinars

 • Promoting regional grants

 FACE-TO-FACE MEETING SEPTEMBER 27-28
Wednesday, September 27, 1:00-4:30pm

 •  The meeting began with introductions and the collection of some 
parking lot issues, including tenure/promotion and EBSCO EDS 
(member relationships, ranking algorithms).

 •  The committee reviewed the charge and responsibilities, and they 
agreed that the charge accurately reflects the committee’s goals.

CHARGE: The Professional Development Committee (PDC) fosters 
development of librarians and related information professionals who 
serve theological and religious studies scholarship and study.

We define the infrastructure needed to deliver professional devel-
opment opportunities to members throughout the year by:

 • determining member needs

 • identifying expert resources

 • utilizing a variety of methods and delivery mechanisms

In doing so, we facilitate the exchange of ideas and support members 
at every point in their careers.

 •  Review of ATLA’s Strategic Plan, including Core Purpose, Core 
Values, Goals, and Objectives, confirms that the charge of the 
committee reflects the organizational goals.



10  ANNUAL YEARBOOK

 • Review of the last year’s activities.
 •  Regional Grants: awarded to FTLA, SEPTLA, MTLA, but still 

did not award all the allocated funds. FTLA is a regular group; 
SEPTLA was a first-time recipient group. MTLA is also a regu-
lar recipient, but received more money this year, supporting a 
robust program. Grants will continue to be promoted over the 
next year.

 •  Webinars: On-demand numbers are very good. Topics were 
selected from high attendance conference presentations or 
from survey results. Good turnout reinforces this methodology 
for topic selection.

   Idea for funnel webinar (registration down from 16 to 17) to 
make a more attractive title. Linked data title (5/16) had a big 
draw, may be good to do another.

 •  Survey: It has only been two years since the last big survey, so 
smaller surveys more focused on specific topics may be good 
in the near future. Survey results are in the 15-16 shared drive 
folder.

Discussion of ideas for future activities:

 •  Ithaca—committee might look at the report and think about 
programming, tool kits, things to overcome challenges identified 
in the study. The report reflects that the issue of engaging with 
faculty is a pervasive one.

 •  Newsletter—discussion about prominence on ATLA website. New 
CRM system will include an upgrade to the newsletter. Commit-
tee members agree that it would be nice to see more member- 
and committee-driven content. Suggestion to include little bits of 
information, rather than full news stories, on PDC-related items. 
Different subject areas for each quarter would highlight different 
areas of interest for members. Suggested topics: faculty collabo-
ration, libguides (suggestion for a philosophy/theology/religion 
user group in libguides. Possible correlation of programming and 
support materials), data, funnels, accreditation/reporting, library 
research resources for members, working with consortia (leverag-
ing membership power), negotiating with vendors.

 • Review of conference survey suggestions



Committee Reports  11

 •  Listserv—should we be more deliberate about sharing on 
ATLANTIS? Michael volunteered to send things to atlantis on 
behalf of the committee. Gillian will share with Michael. 

 •  Could we list professional development opportunities in the 
newsletter? ATLA staff will implement

 •  Shared Google doc would be ideal for collecting links to then 
place in the newsletter; atlantis posting would link back to 
newsletter

 • Open textbooks
 •  Discussions with Wabash re: syllabus database; discussion 

about leveraging the new digital platform to host
 •  Could we use the information in these syllabi to identify an open 

textbook or create an open textbook to support a course in reli-
gion/theology/etc?

 •  Discussion about liaison roles for PDC members to other areas of 
the organization

 •  Competencies conversation—expanding the international 
grants to attend conferences to allow folks to spend more time 
in the country and also have a liaison from the PDC to help coor-
dinate competency-based programs

 •  Scholarly plagiarism—what are publishers doing? Gillian will 
investigate a publisher panel

 • Ebooks—being developed

 • Information lit/tutorials—easy button

 •  Supporting distance learning—library services for online students

 • Basic marketing and promotion

 • Institutional repositories and libraries’ roles

 • Tenure/promotion

 •  Capacity audit—to measure the work that needs to be done / ROI 
calculator

 • ROI for discovery services

 • Digital humanities

 • Dissertations



12  ANNUAL YEARBOOK

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2017, 8:30AM-12:30PM
Continued discussion of possible programming ideas and organiza-
tion of ideas into methods of program delivery and dissemination, as 
well as a timeline for development and implementation/presentation.

YEAR 1
Webinars

 • Fall
 • Anti-racism digital library
 • Instruction videos 
 • Distance learners/virtual human touch
 • Course-embedded information literacy
 • Digital humanities

 • Spring
 • Web design (Tim)
 • Ithaka
 • SACO (January)
 • Funnel update (May)

[Left to right] James Estes, Yasmine Abou-El-Kheir, Wesley Custer, Warren Watson, 
Michael Bradford, Martha Adkins



Committee Reports  13

Newsletter

 • Ithaka

 • Faculty collaboration

 • Metadata funnels, linked data

 • Library for online students

Market research

 • Competencies—gathering players

 • Tenure/promotion—research/brainstorm

Other

 • Analytics—“To ED” start task force

YEAR 2
Webinar

 • Working with consortia

 • Negotiating with vendors

 • Funnel update
Workshop

 • Preparing for accreditation (multi-part online workshop)

 • Discovery services

 • Faculty collaboration

Training/Templates/Examples/Toolkits

 • Web design (training and templates)

 • UX (U of Michigan) (training)

 • Dissertations (templates/examples)

 • Accreditation (toolkit)

Newsletter

 • Information literacy videos

Regular program

 •  Library for online students (Start year one; leverage Wabash 
preconference)

 • Assessment (Start year one)



14  ANNUAL YEARBOOK

Market research

 • Competencies survey

 • Tenure/promotion survey

Other

 • Big data (Collaborate with TL; Grant RFP)

YEAR 3
Podcast/short videos

 • New models of theological librarianship

Toolkits

 • Discovery services ROI

 • ROI calculator

 • Library for online students

 • Dissertations

Webinar

 • Funnel update

Market research

 • Competencies—implement

 • Tenure/promotion—implement


	Preface
	Committee reports
	Committee for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
	Conference
	Endowment
	Professional Development

	Task Forcereports
	International Theological Librarian Education
	Scholarly Communication

	Interest Group Reports
	Public Services
	Small Libraries 
	Special Collections 
	Technical Services 
	World Religions 

	denominational Group reports
	Anabaptist Mennonite
	Anglican/Episcopal
	Baptist
	Campbell-Stone
	Lutheran 
	Methodist
	Orthodox
	Presbyterian and Reformed Librarians
	Roman Catholic

	memorials
	Officers of ATLA (1947–2018)
	ATLA Organizational Directory (2017–2018)
	ATLA Member Directory (2017–2018)
	historical Annual conferences
	AMENDED AND RESTATED BYLAWS OF AMERICAN THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
	2017 ATS Library Statistics

