Notes

• This library is a private, independent project run by a team of volunteers with the help of manycontributors. It and its content are wholly unofficial and are not sponsored or endorsed by any Bahá'í body or institution. It is not affiliated with theBahá'í Reference Library. For official Bahá'í starting points, trywww.bahai.org orwww.bahai.us.
• Do you see any errors, have suggestions, or have an item to submit to the site? Pleasecontact us.
• Due to limited human resources, most material at this site lacksdiacritics and may contain occasional errors; no items should be considered exact facsimiles of published originals. While all files have been proofread at least once for obvious errors and inaccuracies, no files have undergone the level of proofreading and fact verification to which official publications are subjected. Some articles have also been written by those for whom English is a second language; these may contain irregular style and spelling. As well, every document (saveSacred Writings) should be considered as representing the opinion or scholarship of the author only, and may not reflect either common Bahá'í belief or the opinions of the editors of this Library.
• Other than items reposted under "Fair Use" or "Creative Commons" license, every document in this Library has been approved for posting by the author, editor, or publisher. See alsonotes on copyright.
• For a good — though now outdated — discussion of new digital media and limitations of the Bahá'í Library, see Dharlene Valeda'sOrganizing Digital Collections: the Case of the Bahá'í Academics Resource Library (2003). See a newer discussion inBahá'í Library Online at 25: Background, Functioning, and Future (2022).

Contents of this site

This Library is careful to conform to both Bahá'í and academic standards. It only includes material that is informative or historical, is written in a respectful manner, and is not intentionally deceptive. It does not contain any material which is proscribed in Bahá'í practice, e.g. Covenant-breaker materials, personal or confidential documents, or photographs of Bahá'u'lláh. It also does not include any material which does not have a direct scholarly or historical application, such as "Teaching" manuals or contemporary photography.

Some notes on style

1. File name keywords: Document "file names," which are the URLs, consist of 2-4 keywords separated by underscore, which may contain hyphens. While older documents were not always consistent, the following standards have been in place for a number of years.

   Keyword #1 is always the author's last name, where available, or "uhj_" or "us-nsa_". With translations, keyword #1 is the author's last name and keyword #2 is the translator's last name, followed by two keywords. "Abdu'l-Bahá" and "Shoghi Effendi" are treated as last names, with a hyphen. Compilations start with "compilation_".

   File name keywords are always in Latin, or ASCII, characters, so Persian or Russian items must use transliterated keywords. Linked files, e.g. PDFs or Word documents, can use any character set for the filename. See for examplekharman_adab_honar (Latin-character URL, with links to Persian-character documents).

   While limiting it to four may seem constraining, four is sufficient and it keeps the addresses looking tidy. If four is not sufficient to differentiate a document, a hyphen with the date at the end is allowed.

   Examples:

   abdul-baha_lawh_aflakiyyih ("Abdu'l-Bahá" with hyphen)
   abdul-baha_masumian_twelfth_imam (translation, with author name + translator name)
   bahaullah_ali-kuli-khan_macnutt_iqan (translation, with author name + hyphenated translator name)
   bahaullah_surih_vash-shams_cole (translation, with author name + hyphens when four keywords were insufficient)
   buck_bahais_encyclopedia_quran-2001 vs.buck_bahais_encyclopedia_quran-2016 (hyphenated date at end to differentiate)
   compilation_arts_crafts (compilation, multiple authors)
   shoghi-effendi_advent_divine_justice ("Shoghi Effendi" with hyphen)
   uhj_memoriam_semple (document from the Universal House of Justice)
   uhj_turning_point_1996-2006 (date range in file name)
   us-nsa_9-year-plan_destiny_america (hyphen in author name "us-nsa", plus hyphens used for "9-year-plan" when four keywords were insufficient)
   winters_notes_copyright (author name + two keywords)
2. Dates are inISO format YYYY-MM-DD.
3. Quotation marks: Curly quotes / smart quotes“ ” ‘ ’ are never used, but only their ASCII equivalents " and'.
4. ayn andhamza are generally both indicated by the straight apostrophe', butayn may be indicated by the backtick`. Example:`Abdu'l-Bahá.
5. Headings within a document can be H3, H4, or H5.H1 is reserved for thesite title on the first page.H2 is reserved for page titles e.g. "About Bahá'í Library Online" above.

Credits

Since 2014, Glenn Cameron has done a tremendous amount of work for hisChronology of the Bahá'í Faith. From 2001-2015 the chief assistant editor wasBrett Zamir. Since 2017 A. Bolhuis has been single-handedly expanding the tagging system, along with editing, contributing to the Chronology, and adding documents. Peter Smith helps write abstracts. The Version 4 logo was by Ramin Marghi, and the Version 5 logo byVioletta Zein. See also an earlier list ofcontributors and assistants and some of theirpersonal pages. Special thanks to the valuable contributions of Marcel Schwarz.

Most of all, we thank the authors of items in the Library. The work of 150 years and thousands of people is reflected in this site which, no matter how large, is still and always will be the tip of the Bahá'í scholarship iceberg.

History

In 2003 I converted the website from a manually-created, HTML-based site (Version 1; seeSoftware versioning) to a dynamic database-driven site, custom programmed in PHP with a MySQL backend (Version 2).Brett Zamir then completely rewrote and improved the backend in 2005-06 (Version 3), overhauling and streamlining the code, adding security features and language packs, and creating a template/cache function. I took a vacation from the library through 2009 while my second child was at home, while Brett grew it and improved the programming. I returned to the project in 2010 to add new content and interface tweaks. I then reprogrammed the backend in 2012 to make numerous updates to the site's appearance and functioning (Version 4).

Planning for the next complete overhaul started in 2013, but with little progress until 2022 and the development ofVersion 5. I withdrew ownership in 2022, and the Library is now collectively owned by a small team of volunteers, overseen by an advisory board, and owned by aregistered charitable foundation.

See an expanded history of the site atBahá'í Library Online at 25: Background, Functioning, and Future (2022), or the now-outdatedVision statement prepared for theInternational Conference on Bahá'í Libraries and Archives (2003) and my presentationWhat Is a Content Management System? prepared for the 2003 ABS conference.

This site is older than Slashdot (1997), Google (1998), and Wikipedia (2001)! See a Wiki page atbahaikipedia.org/Bahai-library.com.

History: previousversions

• 1997 January(Beta version 0.8: housed at thestudent account utoronto.ca/~jwinters and called "Bahá'í Academics Resource Page")
• 1997 July(Beta 0.9: moved to commercial hosting at interlog.com/~winters and called "Bahá'í Academics Resource Area". Here is its oldest snapshot:archive.org/...interlog.com~winters.)
• 1998(Version 1.0: moved to independent hosting as bahai-library.org and renamed "Bahá'í Academics Resource Library")
• 1999(1.1: organization and layout improvements)
• 2000(major content expansion)
• 2001(1.2: many tweaks to HTML and CSS code)
• 2002(1.3: content expansion)
• 2003(Version 2.0: transformed into a dynamic database site using MySQL/PHP, moved to a dedicated server as bahai-library.com, and renamed "Bahá'í Library Online")
• 2004(2.1: many tweaks to code)
• 2005(Version 3.0: reprogrammed by Brett Zamir to use Smarty templating function — the backend was completely rewritten, but the frontend remained the same)
• 2006(3.1: some tweaks to code)
• 2007(minor updates only)
• 2008(minor updates only)
• 2009(3.2: last version of Brett's Smarty system before being re-modified by Jonah; Brett's system is still in use at bahai-academic.hk.)
• 2010(3.3: edited/formatted 1/3 of the 17,000 individual files posted 1997-2002 and completed the programming initiated in 2003)
• 2011(3.4: refined output; security tweaks; slogged through migrating another 1/3 of the thousands of files posted 1997-2002 [in the pre-database days many items were posted as multiple files, e.g. books which had a different file for each page])
• 2012(Version 4.0: start-from-scratch rewrite of all backend code; many small but cumulative changes to interface and design; (almost) completed importing & editing of all prior items; huge amount of new content; seeWhat's New in Version 4.0.)
• 2013(4.1: completed organizing and sorting (a selected portion of) 15 years' worth of collected files (audio, pdf, doc, images, html, etc) and completed cleaning up the database to the point that (a selected portion of) the complete dataset can beshared by BitTorrent.)
• 2014(4.2: createdChronology database; more HTML files from the pre-2003 website ported to the database; adopted the listservers Tarikh and Tarjuman)
• 2015(4.3: imported more data for theChronology and integrated it with the newDate search,Tags, andPlaces; began atag cloud; uploaded/published another 350 items; moderated the FacebookBahá'í Studies group)
• 2016-2017(4.4: createdChronology and integrated it with the newDate search,Tags, andPlaces)
• 2018-2019(incremental updates only)
• 2020(4.5: addedGlossaries & dictionaries; incremental updates; code updates to migrate to PHP 7; added listserversHikmat,Issues,Kalimat, andTech.)
• 2021(addedFacebook Work Group; added collectionsSongs & sheet music,Compilations by National Spiritual Assemblies, andScripts & screenplays; sorting my offline archive of about 20,000 documents-to-be-posted and put many online; migrating the 1997-2002 files to the database;Version 5 programming begun, by I.V. and B.Z.)
• 2022(4.6:to-do list; sorting my offline archive; still migrating the 1997-2002 files to the database; going through all 6100 database entries one-by-one to improve formatting or update code; starting work on Version 5)
• 2023:(See updates inVersion 5.)
• 2024-04:(5.0 beta: Last incarnation of Version 4.6 of the Library archived atbahai-library.com and inWayback Machine. A brand new codebase is in place at bahai-library.org, pending future development of what has now becomeVersion 6; added collectionTranscripts; greatly expanded and completely overhauled theTags system.)
• 2024-08:(5.0: Migration of mature-but-basic dev site to production site; both domains again merged to bahai-library.com)
• 2024-12(5.09: bugs and patches)
• 2025-03:(5.1: New features includeauthor database, metadata/export, integration ofPartial Inventory, integration ofbahaidata.org properties,80+ languages to browse, and a downloadable, portableoffline archive; see all details atVersion 5)
• 2025-07:(5.2: development has continued at an unprecedented pace compared previous versions, including: expandedLanguages sort/query options; integration of completePartial Inventory database, jumping from 560 items to 29,230 and adding all fields, with links; integration of completeInventory Subjects and correlated to our Tags cloud; redidBaha'i Library Offline with the 41,000 new pages produced from the two new datasets)
• 2025-10(5.2.1: see recent updates listed inDonor letter #8)
• 2026-06, projected:(either 5.5 refactor or 6.0 major release, depending on how extensive the rewrite)

• archives 1999-2003 for bahai-library.org
• archives starting 2003 for bahai-library.com

History in logos


1997


1999


2003


2010


2012


2024 andVersion 5

Ownership, preservation, and donations

Two Facebook groups are in place, for collaboration or in case of technical issues with the Library (or other websites hosted on the same server):Bahá'í Library Work Group andWinters Web Works Support Group.

See more in the presentationBahá'í Library Online at 25: Background, Functioning, and Future (2022).

Donation information (tax deductible) is at27-letters.org.