Denver Seminary

CHURCH RESOURCE ENGAGE 11 Open Access Digital Theological Library Dr. Keith P. Wells | LIBRARY DIRECTOR The challenge of theological education, particularly in a world of online programs and digital resources, necessitates the availability of high-quality, affordable digital content in the theological disciplines. With the advent of the Open Access Digital Theological Library (OADTL) in June 2018, a significant step has been taken to address this challenge. Open access scholarly literature is digital, free of charge, and free of most copyright and license restrictions. Increased access and discovery, without subscription costs or user fees, have the potential to provide critical theological and religious content for the training of men and women in mission and ministry around the world. The OADTL mission statement declares, "Our mission is to make all open access content in religious studies (and related fields) discoverable by everyone in the world through a single search experience for free forever in a non-commercial environment." To accomplish this mission, OADTL curates high- quality content in religious studies and related disciplines from publisher websites, institutional repositories, scholarly societies, archives, and stable public domain collections. OADTL employs a state- of-the-art, integrated library system for record management and discovery. OADTL is staffed by professional librarians and manages content without regard to theological or confessional perspective. They hope to serve a broad range of religious traditions, whether in academic institutions or in local assemblies. The OADTL collections are ecumenical, global, and interreligious and include materials in many different languages. As of September 1, 2018, the OADTL provides advanced library discovery services for and access to over 125,000 eBooks total. This includes 22,000 eBooks from the last 25 years, 15,000 eBooks from the last 10 years, 8,500 eBooks from the last 5 years, 150 collections, and 2,500 journal titles that include 200,000 full-text, peer-reviewed articles. The OADTL adds over 5,000 book titles every month. Denver Seminary is a sponsoring seminary of the OADTL, and the library staff of the Carey S. Thomas Library contributes to the OADTL by submitting content requests, promoting and encouraging use of the OADTL, and by assisting to curate content for the OADTL. We hope this resource will help fulfill the mission of Denver Seminary and serve the information needs of the Denver Seminary constituencies now and in the years to come. The Open Access Digital Theological Library is a resource for students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends. It can be accessed at denverseminary.edu/library. Are the things we are saying true? Not only to who God is, but to the human experience?" David says his seminary professors' pastoral experiences prepared him for his current pastoral role. "Most of my seminary professors were pastors themselves at some point. I learned about pastoral ministry from them. I learned that people are primary. I'm not just a song leader or worship director, I'm a pastor. Denver Seminary really helped me engage with that part of my calling. I lead worship as a pastor. I am thinking about peoples' troubles and journeys while I lead them in worship. I'm shepherding people to Jesus." David Norris graduated from Denver Seminary in 2015 with a master of divinity degree. He has been the worship pastor at Wellspring Englewood Church for two and a half years. He has been married to his wife, Taylor, for seven years. They are blessed with a three-year-old daughter, Norah, and a one-and-a-half year old son, Cohen. DENVER SEMINARY HAS OVER 5,550 ALUMNI, LIKE DAVID NORRIS, WHO ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD. IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE SEMINARY, PLEASE CONTACT ADVANCEMENT@DENVERSEMINARY.EDU.

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