The Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) is a digitized collection of books and associated resources related to Christianity and the Christian tradition. The site was created and is overseen by Harry Plantinga, a professor of computer science at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with the assistance of a team of developers and an advisory board. Calvin College provides space, network access, and financial support for the project. Additional funding is achieved through grants, subscriptions, advertising revenue, individual gifts, and the sale of CD‐ROMs from the library's digitized collection. The stated purpose of the site is to provide resources for education, worship, ministry training, and Christian scholarship. It also seeks to provide educational and scholarly opportunities for interested faculty members and students of Calvin College, an educational affiliate of the Christian Reformed Church.
The homepage is divided into several areas highlighting information about the site's mission, content, and recent updates. A series of tabbed links across the top of each page provides access to the six main areas of the site. Choices include Home, to return to the CCEL homepage; Browse, to locate resources in the digitized library; Search, to access the site's search tools; Community, to participate in an online discussion group; Support, to make a donation or volunteer assistance; and Store, to purchase materials from the digitized collection. A basic search box allows users to search the site directly from the homepage, while a link bar on the left‐hand side of each page facilitates navigation throughout the six main areas.
Books in the library can be browsed by author, title, subject, language, format, or tags. Individual titles are accessed by clicking on the appropriate document link from the category chosen. Texts are stored in Theological Markup Language (ThML), an XML application developed by the CCEL programmers to support the needs of digital theology libraries and electronic texts by allowing for intelligent searching, automatic conversion to other formats, “lining up” documents in various ways, such as parallel columns, and subject and scripture reference indexes for books. ThML allows most works in the library to be viewed in a variety of formats, including HTML, facsimile reproductions, PDF, and plain text. A fee is required to access documents in some formats, such as those suitable for electronic book readers and smart phone applications. An explanation of each format, its use, and any applicable fees is provided on the entry page to each book. Some books link to websites outside of the CCEL. These titles are identified with an appropriate icon. Logged‐in registered users can make use of a variety of tools when viewing books in HTML format, such as the ability to highlight text, add tags, create notes, select a preferred scripture translation, and make edits and corrections to the text itself, via a link on the bottom of each book page. Suggested changes go into a queue to await approval by the site administrators. All users can highlight terms within the text and click a link to obtain a definition from the Wiktionary website, a wiki‐based open‐content dictionary. Books in the collection, for the most part, represent orthodox Christianity as understood by mainstream Protestant Catholic and Orthodox Christians, with greater emphases on Reformed and Protestant writings. Authors range from the Early Church Fathers to more contemporary figures, such as Billy Graham. In addition to the more than 1,000 primary documents by 361 ecclesiastical and secular authors, the site also includes full text Bibles, commentaries, creeds, catechisms, liturgies, hymns, and collected songbooks. While most of the books in the collection are in English, a few foreign language titles are also included. An even smaller number of books are available as MP3 audio files.
In addition to the browse feature, five separate options are available to search for text within books, for specific titles and authors, for definitions, for scripture passages, and for user assigned subject tags. Basic and advanced search screens are available for the first four of these options. All search options allow for Boolean, phrase, wild‐card, and stem searching. In advanced search, a drop‐down menu to the right of each search box allows terms to be searched as keywords, within the full‐text, or within the title, author, or table of contents. Search results can be limited to a specific language or format and ordered by relevance, title, or author. Retrieved texts are presented in HTML format with queried terms highlighted in yellow. A help link is provided for each search option. The ability to search for terms or scripture passages across the entire library or in conjunction with a specific author is particularly useful for scholars seeking to identify terms and concepts used by writers across their various works, such as original sin by Augustine or predestination by John Calvin.
The site as a whole is extremely well organized and straightforward to navigate. Books load quickly and are easy to read in all available formats. Although most of the books in the collection are in the public domain, some titles are public domain in the US but not in Europe, while an even smaller number remain under a publisher's copyright and have been used by permission. Users are warned to check local copyright status before making or distributing copies outside of the US. Complete copyright information is available on the entry page of each book. Additional features of the site include a store to purchase various collections from the library; a community page where registered users can engage in discussion rooms on a variety of topics; a study Bible, which allows users to view various translations, commentary, or reference sources in parallel format; and a library of hymns, searchable by text, tune, person, or hymnal. Detailed background, technical, and contact information is available via an about link on the homepage. Advertisements are included on the sidebars of almost every page of the site, but none are intrusive and all are in keeping with the stated mission of the library. Registered users can block the advertisements via their preference settings. A few broken links were discovered for books available on outside websites. Site administrators would be well‐advised to either correct the links or remove them from the list of available options. Overall, however, this is a well‐executed and technically rich site with a wealth of information and features unmatched by any other online digital collection of its kind. Though the CCEL promotes itself as a source for religious educators, students, ministers, and missionaries, the site would be equally useful to scholars in other disciplines as well, in addition to anyone interested in the history of Christianity and Christian thought.
