2016 Fall Meeting at American Theological Library Association (ATLA)

CARA members Audra Adomenas, Malachy McCarthy, Newland Smith,
and Wanda Dole enjoy a lively conversation at the ATLA offices in downtown Chicago

On Thursday, October 27, 2016, CARA held its Fall Meeting at the offices of American Theological Library Association (ATLA) in downtown Chicago. The American Theological Library Association is a professional association providing support of theological and religious studies libraries and librarians. ATLA produces a line of electronic resources to support the scholarly study of religion and theology. Some of ATLA's work can have useful implications for religious archivists, as shown in a presentation given by Digital Projects Manager Andy Carter, "ATLA’s Genre Forms for Religious Terms and the Thesaurus of Religious Occupational Terms."
Andy Carter, ATLA Digital Projects Manager, gives a presentation entitled
"ATLA's Genre Forms for Religious Terms and the
Thesaurus of Religious Occupational Terms"

This presentation provided an overview of controlled vocabulary and its ability to create multiple intellectual access points to research material. Both the Library of Congress Genre/Form Headings and the Thesaurus of Religious Occupational Terms (TROT) are resources that archivists can use to add controlled vocabulary to their finding aids.

Andy's colleagues also presented at the meeting. Adam Paradis discussed his work as indexer and demonstrated how he contributes descriptive metadata to ATLA's suite of religious literature databases.
Adam Paradis talks about his work as an ATLA indexer

Megan McCarthy, Production Supervisor, gave a tour of the digitization lab and explained how a print publication is scanned, processed, and archived as part of the digital workflow of ATLA's full-text religious literature resources.
Megan McCarthy, Production Supervisor, explains ATLA's digital workflow
Many thanks to Andy, Adam, Megan, and ATLA for hosting a wonderfully informative meeting. Thanks also to all who attended, and we hope to see you again in the Spring!