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The Urantia Book History
Society
THE
URANTIA BOOK HISTORICAL SOCIETY was formed fifty years after the
publication of the Urantia Book. The
first generation of readers took great care, spending one-on-one time talking and sharing their stories.
When we were young, we listened with intense interest,
not because they had any secret or hidden knowledge, but because they
were an interesting group of people, gracious, loving, and enthusiastic
about the book and its mission. We were overjoyed that the book
existed and did not think much about historicity. As the years transpired some histories or critiques were
written that contained a lot of hearsay, speculation, and poor
research. As the histories surfaced, we began to understand why the first
generation of readers spent so much time with us and knew that we
had a duty to pass it on. Our purpose is to
collect primary and secondary source materials and oral histories. We
are proud to share the history of this first generation and look
forward to recording future generations who will follow in their
footsteps The history of our library The project started in November 2005 with the collection and process of scanning documents. When the physical archive grew, we realized the need to house the collection in a university repository. We were referred by our board member, Scott Forsythe, an archivist with the National Archives, to J. Gordon Melton whose collection created the "American Religions Collection" housed at the University of California Santa Barbara. On 26 July 2006, we incorporated in the state of Florida and became the donating organization and clearing house for material donated to the university. We transported the physical archive in August 2006 from Denver, Colorado, to Santa Paula, California. We worked for a year sorting the physical archive and delivered it to the curators, David Gartrell and David Tambo in June 2007. We developed our own computer program and cataloguing system and the library went on-line to the public in July 2007. In the summer of 2007 we catalogued most of the archive. We also converted old films of speeches to digital media in 2007. In the autumn of 2007, we received our 501(c) 3 status from the IRS. We continue to scan and add donated documents to our library. We also keep up with current publications and organizational records of Urantia Book organizations. Our archive is available on-line for students, researchers, and interested persons desiring to know more about the history of the readers of the book and how the contents of the book influences the lives of individual religionists. Physical repository |