Atla Annual 2020 Online

Collections documenting the history of Protestant missions are of great and ongoing interest to a wide range of researchers. Global in scope, they capture histories and perspectives often not otherwise available and support learning and scholarship in disciplines such as history, anthropology, and religious studies. Yale Divinity Library's Day Missions Collection, the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary's Missionary Research Library, and Drew University Library's Methodist Missions collections together comprise a significant amount of primary source material that documents this history. The collections have related but distinct provenance and there continue to be new acquisitions that are processed and made available for researchers and students. The panel will include curators and managers of these collections and will consider the background, current uses, and future possibilities of missions-related collections within and beyond the fields of religion and theology. This panel will be of interest to all who work with theological, religious studies, or related collections and institutions, particularly where the documentation and study of colonial legacies is a primary concern for researchers, faculty, and students. It will also be of interest to librarians interested in critical engagement -- for instruction, management, outreach -- with complex and high-interest primary sources.