Participate!

Contribute Digital Collections

Atla Digital Library Contributing Institutions include libraries, archives, and other institutions from around the world who collect materials in religion and theology. These institutions contribute metadata records representing their resources or contribute digitized collections of materials with their metadata. The Atla Digital Library unites these collections into a single website for easy search and discovery.

The Atla Digital Library brings together digital collections of scholarly, historical and cultural significance that are relevant to the study, teaching, and learning of religion and theology. Examples of the types of digital collections that are sought for inclusion in the Digital Library:

  • Historical manuscripts, including letters and sermons, written by or about important religious or theological figures
  • Digital reproductions of photographs, paintings, woodcuts, and other artistic works related to religious leaders and movements, places of worship, and religious historical events
  • Digital reproductions of historical religious artifacts

For more information, see our Collection Policy


By sharing your metadata and digital collections with the Atla Digital Library, your rich resources will reach a larger audience including educators, students, researchers, practitioners and others from all disciplines who have a need for and interest in collections of religious and theological value. We have outlined below the simple steps and guidelines for contributing to the Atla Digital Library. Regardless of your experience in digital collections or the size of your institution, we welcome your participation and look forward to working with you.

To learn more about the Atla DIgital Library, visit http://0-dl-atla-com.librarycatalog.vts.edu/about


Institutions may contribute digital collections to the Atla Digital Library in two ways:

  1. Harvested Collections This method is for institutions that host their own digital collections and can make the metadata records available either via OAI-PMH or CSV.

  2. Hosted Collections This method is for Atla Institutional and Affiliate Candidate members that have digitized materials with metadata records but need a place to host the collections.

*If you have materials that are not yet digitized and are looking for information on how to get started or guidelines and best practices for digitization see Digitization Help below.


Metadata Requirements & Guidelines

Metadata records for items to be included in the Atla Digital Library must conform to our Metadata Guidelines & Best Practices. Within these guidelines, Atla has established minimum metadata requirements for inclusion in the digital library, but it is recommended that institutions create metadata that is as complete as possible to support and enhance searching and browsing.


Digitization Help


FAQ


Curate an Exhibit

You can also participate in the Atla Digital Library by curating a digital exhibit. If you are interested see our About page or contact us for more information.

Harvested Collections

If your institution has digitized and described digital collections available online through a content management platform with OAI-PMH enabled, such as CONTENTdm, Omeka or Internet Archive, you may be able to contribute these collections to the Atla Digital Library. Additionally we can harvest existing online collections using CSV files.

When we harvest digital collections into the Atla Digital Library, we retrieve the metadata records for the items in your collections, which are then added to the Digital Library as new records along with a thumbnail image for each item. The digital objects described by the metadata remain on the host platform and the new metadata records in the Digital Library link back to your original location. This harvesting is typically done via an OAI-PMH metadata feed, but we can work with other methods if needed. (Most content management systems can make metadata available using OAI-PMH)

Our preferred metadata format for harvesting is Qualified Dublin Core or Simple Dublin Core. Each item record must include at the minimum a Title, Rights and a URL pointing to the original item. For more information see the Metadata Guidelines & Best Practices document and the Metadata Application Profile .

Requirements

To have your digital collections harvested by the Atla Digital Library:

  • Your institution must be one of the following
    • An Atla Institutional Member
    • An Atla Affiliate Member
    • An archive, a non-degree granting organization, or other organization that is not an Atla member but has a collection matching the scope of the Atla Digital Library.
  • Your digital collections must be hosted and maintained by your institution and the records made available by OAI-PMH or another method that allows us to extract the metadata.
  • Metadata records for your digital collections must meet the Atla Digital Library Metadata Guidelines & Best Practices document .

How to Get Started

To request your digital collections to be harvested, please contact us to fill out the Harvesting Request Form.

Collection Harvesting Steps

  1. Review our Collection Scope.
  2. Submit the Harvesting Request Form. Your request will be reviewed and the Atla Digital Library staff will contact you.
  3. Sign and return the Participation Agreement.
  4. Verify that your OAI-PMH feed is enabled and configured or that you are able to provide metadata in a CSV.
  5. Review our Metadata Guidelines & Best Practices document and confirm that your metadata conforms to the minimum requirements.
  6. Atla Digital Library staff will review your metadata and provide an assessment identifying any required changes as well as any recommended changes.
  7. Once any changes or updates are complete, we will conduct a final review of the metadata and begin harvest if everything is complete.

If you have questions please contact us

Hosted Collections

If you are an Atla Institutional or Affiliate Candidate member with digitized materials and corresponding metadata records and need a place to host the collection, you may be able to host these materials in the Atla Digital Library.

For hosted digital collections in the Atla Digital Library, we will upload metadata and digital files for each item to the Digital Library and they will become a part of the collections accessible there. This is meant to provide access to your digital collections and is not intended to serve as a solution for storage or preservation of your digital objects.

Requirements

To have your digital collections hosted by the Atla Digital Library:

  • Your institution must be one of the following
    • An Atla Institutional Member
    • An Atla Affiliate Candidate Library
  • You must pay the annual program fee and an annual storage fee, which is calculated based on the size of hosted digital collections.
  • Your digitized items must have corresponding metadata records and meet the digitization minimum requirements.
  • Metadata records for your digital collections must meet the Atla Digital Library Metadata Guidelines & Best Practices

How to Get Started

To request hosting of your digital collections, please contact us to fill out the Hosting Request Form.

Collection Hosting Steps

  1. Review our Collection Policy .
  2. Submit the Hosting Request Form. Your request will be reviewed and the Atla Digital Library staff will contact you.
  3. Sign and return the Participation Agreement.
  4. Review our Metadata Guidelines & Best Practices document and confirm that your metadata conforms to the minimum requirements.
  5. Atla Digital Library staff will review your metadata and provide an assessment identifying any required changes as well as any recommended changes.
  6. Once any changes or updates are complete, we will conduct a final review of your metadata and create your digital collections.

If you have questions, please contact us