I n t e r n e t C o m m i t t e e f o r
t h e
Order of Preachers
2.1.3 - Dominican Theological Resources
on the Internet
- What is it?
- A collection of theological articles on current topics accessable on
the internet. People using the library, Dominicans and anyone else, will
have access to high quality papers on a wide range of theological topics.
It will be possible to search for papers on particular subjects, or containing
a particular selection of words. Papers could be provided by Dominicans
or selected from a wider source, perhaps eventually including members of
other Christian churches, and other faiths.
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- Why do it?
- We already have a lot of theological material online, which can be
searched by looking for a particular word. Many dominicans are putting
articles and homilies on the web. However, it is like having a library
that is a closet full of papers without any organization or catalog. To
allow these words to preach effectively, to make this useful, it needs
some structure. What we are proposing is to make a universal indexing scheme
for our work which would allow local collections to enter into a universal
library.
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- The major benefit is increased accessibility. Here is a very big pulpit
from which to further worldwide theological understanding. It will make
available to everyone more papers than would normally be available in a
priory library. People living in repressive regimes may find it easier
to read papers on the Internet than to obtain printed versions, as would
those without financial resources sufficient to have their own up to date
theological library. The papers would be accessible even when you
were away from home, such as with travelling preachers.
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- Eventually, inter-provincial theological dialogue and inter-faith dialogue
may be made easier and more fruitful. It would also be integral to providing
resources for online education.
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- How would it be done?
- Collections like this are already beginning to be available on the
Internet. We have begun with such a project
on a very small scale, and there are more collections, like these:
- We would need to involve the Studia of the Order, so that students
who are writing theological papers could share their thoughts more widely,
and lectors can consider publishing some of their ideas electronically.
Conferences organised by Dominicans should be encouraged to offer their
papers to the Internet Library.
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- What would we need?
- We already have the computer equipment required to do this project.
Someone would need to set up a suitable system so that Dominicans around
the world could submit articles, which could be automatically indexed and
added to the library. Somebody would have to encourage people to submit
articles, and it would perhaps be necessary from time to time to edit articles,
or help authors turn their documents into web pages. We already have people
with the expertise to do these things; the major constraint is time.
As with all our projects, the global effort serves to coordinate local
efforts, allowing for the promotion of everyone's work and it's universal
availability. The material for the library would come from many local sources
and would be incorporated into a global resource.
