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Abstract:
Notes written for the 25th anniversary of this website.
Notes:
Presented for The Reference Desk: Projects that Support Bahá'í Scholarship in the Digital Age (see also my presentation script). See also the earlier International Conference on Bahá'í Libraries, my first vision statement (2003), and some details about BLO Version 5.
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1. Quick usage tipsThe Library has about 14,000 unique documents composed of 65,000 distinct files, so easy navigation is important. The site is designed with two principles: (1) most documents are no more than 2 clicks deep, and (2) the design is minimalist — inspired by Google's homepage, my rule is: not one extra character or design element.The following tips are explained in my Youtube video:
2. One can also browse the library by periodically checking What's New, bahai-library.com/new, or Featured Pieces, bahai-library.com/featured_pieces. You can view any number of days in What's New by adding a number after the URL; for example, bahai-library.com/new/50 shows additions from the previous 50 days. 3. Tags function as a subject index. You can search the tags at bahai-library.com/tags, or you can type your search keyword directly into the URL like bahai-library.com/tags/test (this will match all parts of a name, so searching "test" shows results for "greatest"). Location shortcuts are the same, e.g. bahai-library.com/locations/montreal. The entire list of all tags is at bahai-library.com/tags/allalpha and bahai-library.com/locations/allalpha. Tags also address the issue of alternate spellings: for example, our tag Ishqabad covers eight variations: Ashgabat, Ashkabad, Ashkhabad, Ashqabad, Ishkabad, Ishqabad, `Ishqábád, and Ашхабад. 4. The fastest way to find things is by typing keywords directly into my browser's address bar to search for author, title, date, tag, or location. For example, the title search is at bahai-library.com/title, so if I'm searching for a title with the keyword "future" I type bahai-library.com/title/future. If I'm searching for all documents by author "Winters" or written in 2022 I type these in my address bar: bahai-library.com/author/winters or bahai-library.com/date/2022 (YYYY). Glenn Cameron's chronology can be searched with this shortcut: bahai-library.com/chronology/1848, bahai-library.com/chronology/1848-03, or bahai-library.com/chronology/1848-03-30 (we use the ISO format YYYY-MM-DD). 2. Origin / background[The following two paragraphs are copied from About.]
In 2003 I converted the website from a manually-created, HTML-based site (Version 1) to a dynamic database-driven site, custom programmed in PHP with a MySQL backend (Version 2, aka "Web 2.0"). Brett Zamir then completely rewrote and improved the backend in 2005-06 (Version 3), overhauling and streamlining the code, adding security features and language packs, and creating a template/cache system. I took a vacation from the library through 2009 while my second child was at home, while Brett grew it and improved the programming. I returned to the project in 2010 to add new content and interface tweaks. I then reprogrammed the backend in 2012 to make numerous updates to the site's appearance and functioning (Version 4). The site is again in need of a complete overhaul, which will be done in 2022 and 2023 (Version 5). Out of historical curiosity, let's compare the last Version 1 with the first Version 2. The Bahá'í Faith was in the news in July 2003 when whistleblower David Kelly, a recent convert to the Bahá'í Faith, died of disputed causes after criticizing the Iraq war. By coincidence, the following month is when the wholesale rewrite of the Library went online. Compare the snapshots of August and September 2003: this new interest in the Faith, and questions from journalists about suicide, inspired the new top section "featured pieces." That the site grew from a personal page to what it is now is the result of four necessary conditions: the right time, the right place (in my life), the right interest, and the right ability:
3. Vision statement / mandateOur goal is simple: to make available any and all material on or related to the Bahá'í Faith which is either historically relevant, academic in origin, or of potential use in scholarship.The Library is not intended to be a teaching site, or a site "for" Bahá'ís. There are hundreds of high quality sites already online that do a great job of deepening Bahá'ís or presenting the Faith to the world. I am not interested in promoting the Faith — presented neutrally, it speaks for itself. Conversely, and in contrast to some early websites, the Library has never had an agenda critical of any Bahá'í teachings or practices. We do not post anything contemporary that is critical in any way other than academic (by "contemporary" I'm excluding things like, e.g., old articles on Babism from Christian missionaries in Iran). It is important to emphasize that the Library conforms to both Bahá'í and academic standards: it only includes material that is informative or historical, is written in a respectful manner, and is not intentionally deceptive. It does not contain any material which is proscribed in Bahá'í practice, e.g. Covenant-breaker materials or confidential documents. It also does not include material which does not have a direct scholarly or historical application, such as contemporary photography or basic deepening materials. The Bahá'í Library Online is not intended to be a "Bahá'í" site. Most of the Library's contributors are Bahá'ís, but a few are not. The majority of the visitors are Bahá'ís, but many are not (a 2002 poll showed users to be 88% Bahá'ís, 5% ex-Bahá'ís, 4% from other faiths, and 3% seekers). It is important for the Library to state clearly that it is not an official site, nor even a Bahá'í-promoting site, partly to prevent confusion but also so non-Bahá'í readers can see its transparency and objectivity. With most of the world never having heard of the Faith, non-Bahá'ís are the most important audience! As mentioned above, after Dr. Kelly died I'm sure many non-Bahá'ís came to the Library in search of information. I would like to believe that its scholarly appearance and neutral tone encouraged them to read more and know the Faith better. (See more in my now-outdated 2003 Vision Statement.) 4. Uniqueness / valueThe Bahá'í Library has a somewhat unique place online in its neutrality and its flexibility:
We have also helped distribute Bahá'í material in new media. In the late 1990s, when the entire Library was under 700MB in size, one person's chosen project was to distribute it on CD-ROM in Africa. At various times I've shared my archive on BitTorrent, with both a sanitized public version and a 25GB complete version shared privately. Starting in 2015 I kept the Sacred Writings alive on Freenet for a couple years. Individuals also are using the Library to host their own projects, I'll highlight a few. Besides Glenn's Chronology, Adel Shafipour and his colleagues are working on Iranian National Bahá'í Archives and recently completed Fadil Mazandarani's Tarikh-i Zuhur Al-Haqq manuscripts; Dominique Marchal is recording audio versions of the Writings in French; another person is preparing Audio Versions of Letters from the Universal House of Justice. And we still have these six projects online. Finally, an example of how others have valued the Library. Every 2-3 years I get an email from someone late in their life wanting to share their life's work or archive the work of a parent. The first such life-opus collection was in 1999 when Barbara Sims and her family worked with me to scan and OCR all of her histories before she passed: East-asia. The most recent was in 2021 when Ernie Jones and a team of volunteers worked to scan, OCR, format, and proofread his late mother's collection of Bahá'í historical material: emma_maxwell_jones_collection (this project is ongoing). Scholars have also asked me to preserve their unpublished writings when they were in their last years, e.g. Ahang Rabbani and Kamran Ekbal in 2013. Or as Marlene Macke emailed in 2020 when sending her life's collection of Dramatic Readings, "Looking for a home online that can be accessed by other Bahá'ís, it seems this website is the best venue for such a collection. I find myself anxious to find such a site because I've been diagnosed with a terminal illness and wish to have my dramatic readings endure beyond my passing to the next World of God" (qtd. with permission).
5. Editing processThere are four main activities that comprise this job: answering questions, coordinating work, maintaining old documents, and preparing new ones:
6. To-do
7. Future / ownershipDetails about the Library's upcoming changes will be posted at version_5 when available.The Library is in desperate need of a complete reprogramming. It needs a new backend structure, new backend code, and new frontend code for both desktop and mobile interfaces. The site can not take advantage of true crowdsourcing until two things happen: the code needs to be open-sourced, which will allow for both evolution and security; it needs an improved user/editor interface, so the public can more easily contribute. I tried to fund and crowdsource the library twice before: in 1999 I set up donations page, a sponsored projects system, and a cohort of "managing editors." By 2002 I'd gotten only $150 in donations and 2 editors, so I discontinued both and did not ask for or receive any further donations (until 2020). In 2003 I set up a multi-level editors access system for the Version 2.0 site and a couple more people came on board, but it was hardly a crowd and I gave up on the idea. The workgroup on Facebook has helped coordinate a number of projects. In early 2021 we started initial discussions on Version 5 and some programming began later that year, but it's a slow process involving many people and we have no time estimate for completion. I/we plan to register as a non-profit with a dedicated bank account, so that donations can be collected and then paid out to individuals we hire for specific jobs, from programming to editing to design. This will also ensure that the Library not be under any one person's ownership or editorial control. I/we also needed an informal "council" of advisors and a "board" of directors to take collective ownership of the site. With a project as large and complicated as Version 5 I don't know what I don't know, so I also needed to invite experts in the relevant fields: programming, library science, mobile interfaces, non-profit law, etc. We now have a council of seventeen people who have agreed to take an advisory role, and a subset of four people which forms the board. These 17 advisors have a vote on the Library's board members, ownership, general use of funds, and mandate. Some advisors will offer expert oversight of specific areas, like database architecture, mobile design, or citation import/export. The 4-member board will oversee the day-to-day running of the site and actual expenditure of donations. [Update: some things in this paragraph are now outdated. -J.W., 2023 Feb.] As of May 2022, the Library is no longer owned or controlled by an individual, and I (Jonah) will continue as managing editor only so long as elected.
8. Videos of this presentation(the following section is copied from The Reference Desk: Projects that Support Bahá'í Scholarship in the Digital Age) "On 7/8 May 2022 Jonah Winters spoke about his website Bahai-library.com. This leading independent Bahai Studies portal has been online for almost three decades. The session provides insights into the website's origins, purpose, structure, usability, challenges, maintenance, management, and future directions." Video version #1: recorded from Winters' screen
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