Anglican Communion News Service - Digest News

The Anglican Church of Canada today launches a series of online databases to facilitate research on Anglican policies, resolutions and books.

The databases, called "ASK-Anglicans Seeking Knowledge," are part of the General Synod Library's web page and are, as of today, available to the public without charge at:

http://www.anglican.ca/search/databases.htm

The online package consists of five major databases and their accessibility through the internet makes ASK a valuable new resource for the entire Anglican Communion and for researchers world-wide.

The databases include a full text database of General Synod policy resolutions dating back to 1924, a full text database of all resolutions of the Lambeth Conferences (1867-1998) and Anglican Consultative Council meetings (1971-2002), a book catalogue database of more than 4,000 titles and an article database containing more than 32,000 articles. Journals indexed include The Anglican Journal, Anglican World, The Church Times, Episcopal Life, MinistryMatters and The Tablet and others.

The Content Server/WebPublisher software (also known as INMAGIC) used to create the online databases allows researchers to search and print material from the various databases using the internet.

The project, which has been four years in development, demonstrates a commitment to corporate transparency and offers an example of mutual information partnership and reciprocity, said Karen Evans, General Synod Librarian.

"We see this project as an example of partnership in mission, an information and communication offering to the wider Anglican Communion," said Ms. Evans.