Library science is an enormous field, home to every interest you could imagine! This means that there are many organizations out there for you to join, in order to connect with other people who share your professional interests.

So even if you work alone in your library, there are other people out there doing work similar to yours! Each week we will highlight a different library association for you to learn more about, and depending on your work, potentially join! You can also check out our page dedicated to Library Associations.

This week we’ll take a look at the American Theological Library Association. The mission of ATLA is to “is to foster the study of theology and religion by enhancing the development of theological and religious studies libraries and librarianship. Established in 1946, ATLA is governed by an elected board of directors and has over 800 individual, institutional, and affiliate members.

ATLA has an annual conference, a newsletter, offers awards and scholarships, and an online journal. They recently announced the addition of new materials including journals and records to EBSCO’s EBSCOhost platform, which you can learn more about here.

Their website features On Demand Learning, which is a collection of free professional development webinars. They also have a page full of religion reference training resources, since those tools are rarely covered in traditional library training.

You can learn about the benefits of joining ATLA here, or visit their Member Center for more information.