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The SBL has launched the International Cooperation Initiative (ICI) to foster biblical scholarship and to facilitate mutual cooperation among colleagues.
After collecting survey responses from scholars around the world, a Task Force came together to formulate recommendations for SBL action in each of the Society’s program areas (Membership, Publications, the Profession, and Congresses).
As the recommendations are put into action you will find links from this page to the pages on which the new programs in each area are posted.
Publications & The Professions: Online Books page
The first project of the ICI was to provide free electronic access to selected SBL publications to scholars and students in underresourced countries. The system identifies the IP address of a visitor in a country whose Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita is substantially lower than the average of the GDP per capita of the USA and European Union and displays the book selections to those visitors as PDF files which can be downloaded at no charge. Additional books are posted monthly to the site.
SBL encourages participation in scholarly conferences and workshops worldwide. Events sponsored by SBL as well as those independent of SBL are listed on the Calendar of Events for Biblical and Religious Studies. Please contact Tech Support to provide information related to your event so that it can be included on the calendar.
SBL is establishing databases that will facilitate scholarly exchange. Scholars who are interested in and willing to (co)supervise and generally mentor students in institutions outside their home country or who would like to teach in another country when they have sabbaticals or travel time will be listed in one database. Schools that are interested in these types of cooperative efforts will be listed in a separate database. Individual scholars and schools will then have the information needed to contact each other and make their own arrangements. The SBL will not be responsible for any arrangements made by these parties. The SBL, as the host of these databases, will take reasonable steps to protect the privacy of the individuals who offer their services through these databases. Scholars and institutions that wish to participate should provide contact information to the ICI staff representative, Leigh Andersen .
In addition to the Online Books project, the ICI has established eight other objectives that are enumerated in the 2007 SBL Society Report . An Advisory Board consisting of scholars from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, and the Pacific Islands is operating through a listserv managed through the University of Alberta.
Donate Books and Journals for Libraries in China: Bridge to Asia
Bridge to Asia, the largest such program in the PRC where it sends 500,000 books to 1000 universities per year, seeks your unwanted journals and books.
Needs are urgent - even premier schools lack adequate collections. Thank you for helping if you can.
Shipping address (Western U.S.): Bridge to Asia, Foreign Trade Services, Pier 23 - Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA 94111
Shipping address (Eastern U.S.): Bridge to Asia, c/o Follett Campus Resources, 2211 West Street, River Grove, IL 60171-1800
Donations of books are deductible, together with shipping costs. Once you have made your gift, please notify us at contacts below, and we will send an acknowledgment and IRS form for claiming your tax benefit.
Office address - questions and correspondence only - please do not send books to this address: Bridge to Asia, 665 Grant Avenue, San Francisco, CA
94108 - Phone: (415) 678-2990 - Fax: (415) 678-2996
E-mail: nxliu@pacbell.net - URL: www.bridge.org
Peking University
"Books are also requested specifically for Peking University and the MA and PhD programs that are being established there in Christian Studies with the focus on Biblical Studies. If there are books/libraries for sale/donation you know of, please contact Khiok K. Yeo. Only biblical and theological books for historical, scientific, and academic research purposes can be shipped to PKU. All contributions will be received by the International Leadership Group, and ILG will issue the donors tax-exemption receipts and ship the books to PKU. (Because of this effort, Robert Jewett's Romans Library, as well as a complete collection of JBL, is now housed at the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department library at PKU.)"
Anyone interested in participating in the work of the ICI Advisory Board should contact one of the Task Force members: Ehud Ben Zvi (chair), Saul Olyan, and Leigh Andersen (SBL staff). Questions and comments are also welcomed.
You may wish to refer to articles previously published in the SBL Forum which served to precipitate this initiative:
Ehud Ben Zvi, The Future of the Society
Gerald West, The Future of the Society
Kent Harold Richards, The Future of SBL: Dialogue with Members
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