About the DTL

The Digital Theological Library is a co-owned, born-digital library of religious, biblical and theological studies. The mission of the DTL is to provide its co-owning institutions with the highest quality digital resources in religious and theological studies at the lowest possible costs.

The DTL's five libraries contain the most comprehensive collection of specialized digital content in religious studies available anywhere in the world. The DTL, particularly its flagships, Original DTL and DTL2, provide graduate schools with unparalleled collections of digital books and journals. The Global DTL offers similar collections for schools in developing nations at prices affordable for such institutions. The Seminary BookShelf, a research library for religious professionals, provides chaplains, pastors, counselors, independent scholars and other religious professionals with access to a world class research library for one small monthly fee.

The DTL libraries are sometimes mistakenly compared to various databases in theology, religious studies, and Biblical studies. Such comparisons are misguided. The DTL libraries are not databases. Instead, the DTL libraries are comprehensive research libraries in religious studies with more than a 1,000 databases in their collections. The collections in any one database, even a highly specialized religious studies database of a few hundred or a few thousand journals and/or books, are a mere rounding error in the DTL's 1,000,000+ ebooks and 100,000,000+ articles collection.

Use of the DTL's leased and purchased information resources is restricted to those who are either institutional members of DTL's Digital Theological Library (DTL), DTL2, and Global DTL or individual religious professionals with membership in the Seminary BookShelf. As community service, the DTL also operates the Open Access Digital Theological Library (OADTL) which is free for all users.

The DTL is an independently incorporated 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation. The DTL is governed by an executive committee elected by the co-owning institutions.