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Scholarly Communication
Michael Hemenway, Iliff School of Theology, Chair

COMMITTEE MEMBERS

• Michael Hemenway, Iliff School of Theology, Chair
• Clifford Anderson, Vanderbilt University
• Melody Diehl Detar, Duquesne University
• Barbara Jenkins, University of Oregon
• Andrew Keck, Southern Methodist University
• Christine Fruin, Atla Staff Liaison

YEAR IN REVIEW

The Scholarly Communication Committee welcomed two new 
members for the 2019–20 year: Melody Diehl Detar and Barbara 
Jenkins. Melody and Barbara have made significant contributions 
to the committee this year. During the 2019–20 year, the committee 
wanted to build off of momentum from the 2019 annual meeting 
in two directions: open educational resources (OERs) and digital 
humanities. 

OERs
In October of 2019, the committee released a survey on understand-
ing and utilization of OERs. The survey had 44 responses and gave 
us some good information about the status of members with respect 
to OERs. In December of 2019, Melody Diehl Detar hosted an Atla 
webinar on “Open Educational Resources: From the Beginning.” The 
committee helped to organize two sessions on OERs at Atla Annual 
2020, “Now More Than Ever: The Need to Build Open Scholarship 
in Theological Libraries” and “The Role of Librarians in Supporting 
Textbook Affordability Initiatives at Theological Colleges.” These 
initiatives are increasing the understanding of OERs and their poten-
tial utilization in Atla member schools.

https://www.atla.com/blog/oersurvey/
https://www.atla.com/blog/oersurvey/
https://www.atla.com/event/open-educational-resources/
https://sched.co/cOAQ
https://sched.co/cOAQ
https://sched.co/cO8v
https://sched.co/cO8v


Committee & Task Force Reports  13

Digital Humanities
The committee spent considerable time this past year crafting a 
proposal to partner with a smaller member library to run a Wikidata 
workshop with the goal of getting all of the school’s faculty publica-
tions into Wikidata. This workshop was intended to help develop 
a process and a toolkit that could be shared with other libraries to 
make their own publications more visible in Wikidata. Unfortunately, 
for logistical reasons, the committee was unable to schedule this 
workshop. In the spring, the committee released a LibGuide focused 
on digital humanities for theological and religions studies. Commit-
tee members facilitated digital humanities sessions at Atla Annual 
2020, including “Proposing a TEI-Encoding Project for Wesley Works,” 

“Copyright Best Practices for Digitization Projects,” and “Better-Cast-
ing: Best Practices for High-impact Screencast Tutorial Development.”

Two committee members will end their terms this year. Thank you 
to Andrew Keck and Clifford Anderson for your service to the commit-
tee these past years.

https://atla.libguides.com/digitalhumanities
https://atla.libguides.com/digitalhumanities
https://sched.co/cO9M
https://sched.co/cOAH
https://sched.co/cO9P
https://sched.co/cO9P

