Religion Collections in Libraries and Archives: A Guide to Resources in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia Table of Contents - Preface/Acknowledgements - Abbreviations Lists of Entries: District of Columbia - Maryland - Virginia

International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, Archives Center, Jenkins Research Library, and Image Library

(Formerly the Foreign Mission Board)

Access Policies

Researchers who wish to use the Archives should call ahead for an appointment as seating is limited. There are restrictions on collections. The charge for photocopying is based on volume

Reference Policy:

Reasonable telephone and mail inquiries are accepted.

Borrowing Privileges:

The Archives and the Image Library are not lending institutions. The Library will loan to other institutions via interlibrary loan, but not to the general public.

Networks/Consortia:

The Archives and the Image Library are not members of any networks or consortia. The Library participates in OCLC and SOLINET, with the great majority of its holdings listed in OCLC.

Background Note:

The Archives was founded in May 1845. Records go back to this date. The Jenkins Research Library was founded in 1960. The Image Library was founded in the 1940s.

Description of Collections

Books and monographs:

About half of the Jenkins Library's 20,000 monograph titles deal exclusively with religious topics; the rest provides technical support for the International Mission Board's current range of activities. The collection, dating from the mid-1800s to the present, is rich in material about and for the support of international missions, including ethnolinguistic and anthropological studies of peoples and groups, social and cultural studies, mission histories (particularly Baptist), and strategies for the creation and growth of new churches.

Periodicals and newspapers:

The Library currently subscribes to about 600 titles, with holdings running generally from 1990 to the present. A few titles are kept for longer periods. Subject emphases include missions, current events, and ethnolinguistic groups. The Library attempts to collect all state Baptist newspapers. There are also journals from other denominations and general interest periodicals.

On microfilm, the Archives maintains a complete run of the Home and Foreign Journal, Southern Baptist Missionary Journal, The Commission, and the Foreign Mission Journal.

Archives, manuscripts, correspondence, and oral histories:

The Archives has more than 2,000 linear feet of materials with inclusive dates from 1845 to the present. Subject highlights include materials on the Southern Baptist Convention, international missions, missionary correspondence, and records from the International Mission Board, with a geographic global emphasis.

In-house finding aids are available for these collections.

Microforms:

The Archives has about 700 reels of microfilm and approximately 10,000 microfiche. Subject highlights include materials on the Southern Baptist Convention, international missions, missionary correspondence, and records from the International Mission Board, with a geographic global emphasis.

Maps:

The Archives has some maps with inclusive dates from 1825 to the present.Highlights include a pre-war (1930) map of China and a map of Africa drawn in 1825.

The Jenkins Library map collection has about 1,200 maps from the last 15 years, including some mission maps. There are alphabetical and topical files.

Videos and Sound Recordings:

The Library has a collection of videos on various ethnolinguistic groups. These videos are not available for interlibrary loan.

Vertical files:

The Jenkins Library has 40 drawers of material from the last 10 years, including country files, mission newsletters, and topical files on Baptist agencies, missions, prominent personalities (e.g. Lottie Moon), and other evangelical organizations interested in missions.

Paintings, photographs, slides, and prints:

The Archives has 25 paintings. Most are oil on canvas; some are watercolors. These are primarily portraits of missionaries and Presidents of the International Mission Board.

Databases, CD-ROMS, and other machine-readable sources:

The Archives has a fully searchable database of the International Mission Board that contains minutes from 1845 to 1979 and Annual Reports from 1846 to 1953, African American Heritage and Lottie Moon Correspondence. This is available on the Archives' web page at http://archives.imb.org/. The Jenkins Library has a number of CD-ROMs: Operation World, Anthropological Literature, Southern Baptist Literature Index, and The Ethnologue.

The Image Library has about 2000 photographs related to mission work in China from the 1920s to the 1940s. There are a limited number of 19th century photographs of China.

Subject Headings

Bibliography

Crouch, Archie R., et al. Christianity in China: A Scholars Guide to Resources in the Libraries and Archives of the United States. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1989. Pp. 388-391.