History of Missiology and “Biblioteca Electronica de Misiologia”

1 History of Missiology and “Biblioteca Electronica de Misiologia”: A Report on Two Web-Based Resources for Mission Studies Dwight P Baker Associate Director Overseas Ministries Study Center New Haven, Connecticut August 16–23, 2008 The third theme suggested for this meeting of the Documentation, Archives, Bibliography, and Oral History Study Group (DABOH), held in conjunction with the 12th IAMS Assembly, lists the following: (3) Issues and Strategies for establishing national and regional partnership How can churches outside of Western Europe and America develop their own resources in documenting Christianity? Why is it important to develop regional and international cooperation in documenting Christianity? Can we identify some emerging models for such endeavours? The History of Missiology Web site and the proposed “Biblioteca Electronica de Misiologia” Web site, covered in this report, touch on several facets of this third theme They offer one among a number of possible models for creative and fruitful use of the capabilities offered by the Internet so as to provide students and scholars with enhanced access to rare or hard-to-obtain missiological materials These projects were conceived and are being carried out through multiindividual, multi-institutional, and now multi-national partnerships Background Dana Robert, professor of mission at Boston University School of Theology, has been the central figure in organizing both the History of Missiology Web site, which has been active for some time, and the “Biblioteca Electronica de Misiologia” (BEM), now in the initial stages of development Besides providing the initial conception, she obtained grants to assist with start-up costs for the projects, engaged the energies of graduate student assistants in gathering and scanning materials, and enlisted the cooperation of Boston University’s department of information technology and particularly BU’s School of Theology library in support of the projects The sites are a joint undertaking of the Center for Global Christianity and Mission, of which Dana Robert is co-director, and the School of Theology library, whose computer servers hosts the sites The university is committed to maintaining the Web sites in existence Jack Ammerman, the School of Theology’s head librarian, has been active in overseeing the Web site development and in accessioning materials Initial impetus for formation of the History of Missiology Web site came from a desire to meet the needs of Boston University School of Theology’s graduate students These students needed access to rare, out-of-print, and hard-to-obtain publications by persons important to the history of the Protestant wing of the modern missionary movement from the West The original conception was to create an electronic analogue to the array of books, chapters, article offprints, papers, and informal binders or readers that a professor might collect and place on a library reserve shelf for the benefit of students The students then could read the materials in the library, make photocopies, or even scan personal copies for transfer to their computers Placement on the Web held out the promise of easing the load on professors, of increasing ease and flexibility of access for students, and of providing a greater range of materials For professors, materials, once scanned and posted to the Web site, would no longer have to be physically regathered and reassembled semester by semester Additions and deletions to course reading materials could be made simply by distributing a revised reading list—possibly by posting it on the Internet or by email By the same token, efficiencies would accrue to the library staff, and library shelf space would be freed up For students, posting of the readings themselves to the Web would remove a bottleneck Students would no longer be limited to the operating hours and physical location of the library for access to required materials They would not need to queue up at a specific location at specific hours to read assigned materials Multiple persons could access the same material at the same time at their convenience, doing so from their homes or laptops, reading the materials online or downloading copies or printing out personal copies of the materials as they chose Placement on the Web would make it possible for students to access rare, remote, and delicate books, manuscripts, and records that otherwise would not be available at all or that would not hold up to repeated handling large by numbers of students While retaining those purposes, the intent of the Web site broadened, making the materials available also to professors and students of other institutions as well as to mission scholars and interested persons in general Scope and Contents As stated, the initial purpose of the History of Missiology Web site was to make rare, out-ofprint, and hard-to-obtain materials available The project has an open-source, unrestricted-use cast to its character as well Therefore, it focuses on posting of materials for which copyright has expired and which are in the public domain In addition, authors may offer materials for which they hold the rights of publication for inclusion on the site The site has an open-source ethos, but it is not a wiki Individuals are welcome to suggest works to be added to the site and to forward scanned copies of books to which they have access, but decisions about whether a particular work is suitable to be posted to the site and about the technical quality of the scanning of materials are made by the site administrators It is well to inquire in advance regarding the technical specifications for scanning materials Soon a statement of the technical specifications will be posted on the Web site and may be consulted there The holdings posted to the History of Missiology Web site have grown rapidly In early 2007 the site held 250 books Jack Ammerman states that the site now contains “83 missionary biographies and 660 digitized books” (e-mail, August 15, 2008) He writes that “more books are ready to be added, but we are waiting for the fall semester when we will have additional student employees to assist.” To extend site funds and provide student employment, much of the electronic processing of materials received is handled by student assistants 3 In addition to books and articles, the site also contains low-resolution portraits and photographs of significant missionary figures The site focuses on providing copies of books and articles for which the full text resides on the Web site itself It also provides, however, numerous links to texts which have already been digitized by others and which are available on other Web sites, making it a mini-portal for digitized missiological texts The University of Michigan history department, for example, digitized the entire set of reports issued by Edinburgh 1910 and placed the set online The History of Missiology site provides a link to each of the volumes Finding Resources Within the Collection Examples for each of the following steps for finding materials within the History of Missiology Web site are provided in the screen shots appended to the end of this report Entries under the heading “Missionary Biographies” are organized alphabetically The entries include a brief biographical statement, a picture of the subject, a short bibliography of primary and secondary materials, and a set of links to texts by or about the subject The collection of texts contained in the “Books” section can be searched by author’s name or keyword The collection can also be browsed alphabetically, and searches can be narrowed by selection from a pre-set list of topic headings Entries for each book include the full title, author, year of publication, links to each of the formats in which the text is available or to the external site on which the text may be found, and a shorter or longer list of subject tags In addition, the “Links” page lists external Web sites offering relevant information for students doing research in the area of the history of missiology Currently the section offers links to fourteen such sites From Digital Copies to Printed Texts The materials on the History of Missiology Web site may be read onsite, downloaded, or printed out by individuals and professors Professors, if they wish, can make multiple copies to be handed out to students Since the materials on the History of Missiology Web site are in the public domain or have been placed on the Web site by permission of those who hold the rights of publication, there are no restrictions on downloading or duplicating of materials There may or may not be restrictions on materials on other Web sites to which cross links are offered Users should check the policies of such sites In either case proper acknowledgment should be made to the site from which material is obtained Materials on the History of Missiology Web site can be downloaded in several different formats: PDF, DjVu, and MS Word Links are provided so that those who not have the Adobe Reader or the DjVu reader can download copies Contributions by OMSC A number of materials produced at OMSC have been or are being placed on the History of Missiology Web site Entries from the Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, edited by Gerald Anderson, former executive director of OMSC, can be found there OMSC is in the process of making articles from the IBMR’s “The Legacy of So-and-So” and from its “My Pilgrimage in Mission” series available for placement on the site In part to make this step possible, a student and his wife spent June and July of 2008 at OMSC scanning all issues of the IBMR Over the coming months, OMSC will be able to provide PDF copies of the “Legacy” and “Pilgrimage” articles to the History of Missiology Web site As an aside, a direct benefit of this summer’s scanning is that OMSC will soon be able to place the complete run of the IBMR and of the Occasional Bulletin of Missionary Research online on its own Web site at www.internationalbulletin.org Subscribers to the IBMR will be able to access all issues of the journal from 1977 forward in high quality PDF format Up to now only the most recent years of the IBMR have been available on OMSC’s Web site “Biblioteca Electronica de Misiologia”: Intent and Approach After the above review of the History of Missiology Web site, the proposed “Biblioteca Electronica de Misiologia” can be covered more quickly BEM is built upon the model provided by the History of Missiology site and will operate in similar fashion BEM will be open source and collaborative in character Users will be invited to assist in scanning or otherwise digitizing of materials to be uploaded Technical specifications are being prepared to guide users in creating usable quality scans of sufficient resolution Digitized materials will be forwarded to a project coordinator who will check that they are of usable quality Conversion of files to the site’s standard formats and uploading of files will be handled under the supervision of the site administrator The site will not be password restricted but will allow open access The intent is to avoid placing fees or access charges as barriers in the way of end users In providing access to missiological resources written in Spanish and Portuguese, the “Biblioteca Electronica de Misiologia” Web site proposes to serve the needs of Latin American professors, students, and mission training institutions, some of which because their locations have limited access to extensive library collections The proposal for BEM grew out of a wedding of the model and interface provided by the History of Missiology Web site with the needs, first of all, of students enrolled in the Latin American Doctoral Program in Theology (LADPT), a program spearheaded by Charles Van Engen Van Engen writes that LADPT is “a multi-site and multidenominational community of Latin American scholars working together in a Graduate School of Theological Sciences, academically linked to the Evangelical University of Latin America (UNELA) in San José, Costa Rica, and accredited by the government of Costa Rica.” LADPT enrolls students from throughout Latin America This past June at the annual meeting of the Association of Professors of Mission and the American Society of Missiology an organizing committee convened by Dana Robert and Charles Van Engen met to give form to the Web site proposal and to initiate the process of digitizing materials to be placed on the site The writer of this report was invited to be a member of the sites’s organizing committee 5 Once again, the vision for a Web site has moved beyond the bounds of the situation that first occasioned its proposal Though originally thought of as meeting the needs of doctoral students in LADPT, it is projected that missionary training schools and scholars throughout Latin America will be able to draw upon the materials posted to the site It will be possible to download materials on the site in PDF, DjVu, and possibly MS Word formats Schools and professors will have the option to make duplicate copies of downloaded materials for the use of their students Observations First, I have written in terms of two separate Web sites It may well be that there will be a single comprehensive database which users can search as a whole or browse in making selections Or, students may be able to elect to search or browse only the English language or Spanish language or Portuguese language holdings in the database Second, the collaborative and open source character of these projects will profit greatly from the accumulated wisdom—technical, legal, relational, financial—gained by others who have had experience carrying out similar projects Suggestions and advice and warnings about pitfalls are both welcome and sought Third, links to be added to the sites as well as content to be placed on them are desired Persons aware of other sites containing pertinent missiological texts are invited to forward information, including URLs, to Dana Robert or Jack Ammerman Fourth, construction of the database and Web site is very much an example of creative use of an emerging technology (I consider the Web to be a technology still very much in development, not a complete or finished product) The Web site(s) is a product of collaboration and crossinstitutional and now cross-national partnering It is also an instance of the effort to push back against the colonialism of knowledge and, particularly with BEM, to make knowledge derived from “over there” or built upon experience gained “over there” also available “over there.” Further Information More information about the History of Missiology and BEM Web sites and about LADPT can be found at http://digilib.bu.edu/mission; in the notice, “History of Missiology Web Site,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 32, no (July 2008): 134; and in Charles Van Engen, “The Latin American Doctoral Program in Theology: A Report” (forthcoming) 6 Screen Shots MISSIONARY BIOGRAPHIES Roland Allen’s Biography BOOKS 10 11 12 LINKS 13 14 ... promise of easing the load on professors, of increasing ease and flexibility of access for students, and of providing a greater range of materials For professors, materials, once scanned and posted... Intent and Approach After the above review of the History of Missiology Web site, the proposed “Biblioteca Electronica de Misiologia” can be covered more quickly BEM is built upon the model provided... array of books, chapters, article offprints, papers, and informal binders or readers that a professor might collect and place on a library reserve shelf for the benefit of students The students