





































9

BUSINESS  
REPORTS

ATLA Association Update
By Brenda Bailey-Hainer, ATLA Executive Director

ABSTR ACT The ATLA Association Update provides highlights of 
ATLA’s accomplishments for the year, an overview of finances for fiscal 
year 2018, and a brief preview of the projected budget for fiscal year 
2019.

Both members and staff have been busy during the past year with 
projects and activities supporting ATLA’s mission and organizational 
ends. Just a few of those activities are included here. Additional infor-
mation can be found in the committee and task force reports included 
in the 2018 ATLA Yearbook.

One significant area in which ATLA has made progress is facilitat-
ing open access publishing in the study of religion and theology. The 
recently formed ATLA Publishing Program created a more coher-
ent structure for all of ATLA’s publications.  It distinguishes between 
ATLA’s association-related publications that are staff driven and 
also created the ATLA Press, which covers the publications that are 
primarily member driven.  Part of the long-term plan was to create a 
staff position to oversee this new structure and coordinate the vari-
ous editorial boards.  In October 2017, ATLA hired Christine Fruin, 
who is now our Member Programs and Scholarly Communication 
Manager. A detailed ATLA Press Update is included elsewhere in the 
2018 Proceedings. 



10  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

A key area of ATLA’s work is global collaboration. Over the past two 
years, several of ATLA’s peer groups, including BETH (the European 
association of theological library associations), ForATL (the Forum for 
Asian Theological Libraries), and ANZTLA (the Australian and New 
Zealand Theological Library Association), have been in discussion 
with ATLA about education for theological librarianship. A joint task 
force that includes representatives from around the world and those 
with expertise in various countries is being coordinated by ATLA. 
Chaired by Dr. Kelly Campbell, the task force has outlined their work 
in their report in the 2018 ATLA Yearbook.  

The Task Force on Scholarly Communication in Religion and Theol-
ogy was formed in 2016. The group learned about various aspects of 
scholarly communication and created learning opportunities for 
ATLA members. For example, the THATCamp session held imme-
diately prior to the 2018 ATLA annual conference was the product 
of the Task Force. The group is also investigating other ways that the 
ATLA community can have an impact on scholarly communication. 
One example is a cooperative effort between ATLA and Vanderbilt 
University to ensure that a forthcoming De Gruyter book is released 
as an open access publication available to all. Digital Humanities and 
Libraries & Archives in Religious Studies, edited by Clifford Anderson, 
includes several chapters written by other ATLA members, including 
Bo Adams, Bobby Smiley, and Michael Hemenway. Another initiative 
of the task force is exploring the potential for creating a collection of 
OERs—Open Educational Resources—to support theology and reli-
gious studies courses.

A major accomplishment of staff this past year was the November 
2017 release of a new full-text collection. Called ATLASerials PLUS™ 
(ATLAS PLUS™), it includes the full text from ATLASerials® (ATLAS®) as 
well as full text from more than one hundred additional titles. As part 
of this project, the metadata previously included in the ATLA Catho-
lic Periodical and Literature Index® (ATLA CPLI®) is now part of the ATLA 
Religion Database® (ATLA RDB®). This allowed us to add new Catholic 
full-text content in both ATLAS® and ATLAS PLUS™. 

Following ATLA’s overall long-term plan to significantly expand 
ATLA’s coverage of diverse content published around the world, in 
addition to those added from ATLA CPLI, the number of titles indexed 
in ATLA RDB has grown significantly over the last three years. Since 



Business Reports  11

June 2015, 262 new titles have been added to the index—forty-three 
of those just since last year’s ATLA conference. This reflects the work 
staff has been able to accomplish as the result of an investment in a 
new editorial platform a few years ago. The new platform has helped 
ATLA’s Production Department be more productive, allowing the 
expansion of the scope and coverage of the databases. Currently ATLA 
RDB indexes 948 titles from fifty-five countries; of those, 579 (61%) 
are peer reviewed, and 211 of the 948 titles (22%) are open access.  

The full-text content in ATLA products includes publications 
from thirty-three countries. The depth of the content has been 
expanded as well, with a significant number of the titles in ATLAS 
and ATLAS PLUS including content for issues going back to volume 1, 
issue 1. Of the 334 titles in ATLAS, 64% go back to volume 1, issue 1, as 
do 67% of the 458 titles in ATLAS PLUS. ATLA continues to maintain 
the high level of quality of the content, with 59% of the titles in both 
ATLAS and ATLAS PLUS peer reviewed. Open access titles continue 
to be represented in the full-text content, with 7% OA titles in ATLAS 
and 6% in ATLAS PLUS.

These efforts to improve and expand the ATLA products have been 
popular with libraries. More than 1,500 libraries in sixty-five countries 
now subscribe to ATLA databases.

During the current fiscal year, ATLA has a budget of $7.8 million.  
By far, most of ATLA’s funds are generated through revenue derived 
from royalties as the result of library subscriptions to ATLA databases 
(94%). Additional sources of revenue include member dues (2%), the 
annual conference (1%), and other miscellaneous income such as 
income from investments (3%). 

ATLA uses that revenue it receives to support the work needed to 
achieve its mission and organizational ends. Some money is used for 
ongoing maintenance and expansion of the databases (36%) and to 
provide administrative services to support the organization, includ-
ing staff in the Member Programs Department (25%). Another 15% 
covers overhead expenses such as legal service, rent, and insurance.  
Ten percent goes to research and development to improve products, 
conduct market research, and investigate potential new products and 
services, while 5% supports the work of the board and committees. 
Other expenses include travel and professional development for staff 
(5%) and the annual conference (4%).



12  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

While ATLA is blessed with a significant revenue stream from its 
products, to be a good steward of resources, the association must 
always set aside funds for less prosperous times. Thanks to the efforts 
of the Endowment Committee, contributions from members, and the 
stock market, as of May 30, 2018, the balance in the ATLA Endowment 
Fund was $636,606, up from $560,426 last August. ATLA continues to 
make good progress toward the short-term goal of reaching $1 million.   

Staff is still in the process of finalizing the FY19 budget. The 
uptake of ATLAS PLUS has been encouraging so far, but, due to the 
timing of many library budget cycles, a realistic revenue forecast 
can best be made once library subscriptions with a July 1 start have 
been confirmed. At the time of the ATLA annual conference, the draft 
projection for fiscal year 2019 was a budget of $7.668 million. This is 
down slightly from the $7.8 million budget for 2018. The projection 
is based on an expectation of slightly higher revenue from products, 
offset by the need to use less money for research and development.  

Many of the capital projects started this year will continue into next 
year. These include implementation of new software for managing asso-
ciation operations, along with implementation of new content manage-
ment software followed by a redesign and rewrite of the website.

As always, ATLA’s accomplishments are the result of the collective 
efforts of many people. Without volunteer contributions on commit-
tees, interest groups, and task forces, along with the work of staff, 
ATLA would not be able to accomplish its goal of promoting worldwide 
scholarly communication in religion and theology by advancing the 
work of libraries and related information providers. 


