Laura Busch, a graduate student at Washington University, Seattle is pursuing her PhD with specialised interdisciplinary work in religion and digital media. She has created an online religious studies page intended to be an ongoing electronic database of links and bibliographic materials on online religion, religion online, cyberspace and cyberculture studies. The most comprehensive section of her site is the Online Buddhism/Buddhism Online portion called the Storehouse; this is the portion of the database that I reviewed. Starting from the Storehouse's home page, one begins an exciting, at times intense, and comprehensive journey into the secrets of Buddhism. The link on About this Site is recommended to be read at least once or at every visit to the site. This page informs readers that this database is very Western‐centric or rather American‐centric in its content for a very good reason: the page was built by an American. And maybe because of its content, Westerners now have a place to come and learn about Buddhism online.
In the General Resources section of the database, the breadth of information on each entry may give a spin to novices of Buddhism. There are links to serious reading material on different facets of Buddhism that one must read and examine carefully to avoid getting lost. It requires readers' time and patience. The section on women and Buddhism features a well‐known Buddhist nun, Ven. Tenzin Palmo (Diane Perry), who has become known around the world as the Englishwoman who spent 12 years in meditation retreat in a cave high in the Himalayas. There is section on socially engaged Buddhism, which features ways of bringing together Buddhism and progressing social change. There is also a section on Buddhism and Science that includes information and links to the Mind and Life.
The Advanced section of the Storehouse is for specialists in Buddhist studies who are affiliated with academic institutions. This section takes readers to a discussion list for which they must subscribe in order to post messages. There are also lists of Buddhist Organisations and Cybersanghas and many links to web rings where one can read news or get updates on what is happening in Buddhist circles around the world. Readers will soon realise that each entry in the database is a database in itself.
I ran into some broken links, as expected in the internet community, but there is a link for readers to report this problem to the author. There is also link for suggesting new sites. One disadvantage is that there is no searching option to navigate through the hundreds of resources. Readers just have to scroll page after page and intermittently read on all pages for a particular idea, a particular group, or name. This weakness in the database needs to be resolved as it grows.
Overall, this database is lively, comprehensive and a serious place for research on Buddhism. Laura Busch does an excellent job gathering Internet resources for her Storehouse page. It is indeed a comprehensive, one stop shop available on Buddhism for all levels.
