The Joseph Smith Papers project is a website dedicated to the many restored historical documents written by or about Joseph Smith, the first founder and prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints. This church, known as Mormonism, started when Joseph Smith experienced the Second Great Awakening by seeing a series of visions.
The start of Joseph Smith’s revelations can be dated back to 1828 when he began working on the Book of Mormon at 22 years old. He documented all of his revelations, whether as simple as remembering to write something down or seeing visions of heaven and the future.
Along with all of these revelations being documented, almost every move he made was documented. He kept daily journals, some entries being a sentence, and some being paragraphs. His court appearances are documented as well as things concerning his family or estate after he passed at 44 years old. There are also letters he wrote to people, minutes from business meetings, discourses, minutes from church councils, official histories, and information about churches that were under Smith’s institution. So, as one can infer, this project is jam-packed with very many things left for readers to dissect and delve into.
The project’s start can be traced back to two years after Smith’s death when the second president of the church, Brigham Young, transported the documents he collected from Nauvoo, Illinois to the Salt Lake City Valley. From there, there have been numerous volumes and articles published and restored. To this day, the foundation that is running the project has a place dedicated on the website to inform them of any Joseph Smith documents they may have missed/not included. The foundation responsible for holding the papers and organizing the project is the Church History Library in Salt Lake City.
Now that the background of the project is laid out, let’s get into my review of the website itself. I chose this project upon the many that were offered because Mormonism is huge in social media these days. Scandals are being told about Mormon families and even shows being made about them. There are countless TikToks made captioned “asking BYU students questions” – the infamous Brigham Young University, a predominantly Mormon college. As a non-Mormon myself, I find their culture to be very interesting since it is so juxtaposed to other, more common religions.
I started exploring this site unbiased, as one should, to quickly see the publishers did not do the same. Now, I will cut some slack here since it is a project these people have dedicated countless hours into because it is their own religion that they are passionate about. With this being said, if someone that is opposed to Mormonism came across this website, they would have a problem with the outright praise there is for the religion and Joseph Smith. But again, it is a place that followers of this religion have made but, may be something they want to consider if they wanted more of their audience to be non-followers or people considering converting.
Because this website packs so much information, it is important that it is organized very well and easy to navigate. This is where they missed the mark. There are many dropdowns and dropdowns within dropdowns and menus within menus. For someone visiting the site for the first time I had such a hard time finding what I wanted to see and it took me a good 20 minutes or more to get somewhat comfortable with where things were that I would be referencing. For example, there is a dropdown menu labeled “the papers”. From there, there are nine options to choose from. I started by first browsing journals. From there it gives you the option to choose between two different time periods. Once you select which chunk you’d like to see, you have to again choose an option, this time more specifically. Once you get to this point you finally are greeted with a picture of the original document as well as the transcription. See how many times I said “from there”… As stated, I have already acknowledged this is a website with copious amounts of material, I just feel it would be more user-friendly if some of it was simplified into fewer “clicks” and “taps” away. Another issue with this is who can easily access and navigate the sight. Someones 80 year old grandparents that are already not internet experts for example would not get very far on this site. So to reiterate my point, if they wanted to make this website more accessible and easier for people who are simply curious about the topic and history, they should make it much less complex.
After seeing and attempting to read the documents, I have another point of disapproval. Although they did a wonderful job of preserving the historical aspect of it all, I would have liked to see translations of what Joseph Smith was saying. They did transcribe his writings, but not to the point that made them reader-friendly. I would have appreciated it if they transcribed the original messages as well as translated them into modern terms as best as they could. Again talking about who can benefit from the website, only hardcore Mormons can really get the most out of this site.
Something that I did like about the website was the aesthetics. They kept a nice theme throughout, a worn beige color which I’m assuming was to match the color of the documents. They also chose a nice font that gives off an “old” vibe that I think works very well. If they had chosen a modern-looking theme or used a generic font, it would not have been as enjoyable to look at and browse through.
Another thing that I enjoyed about this site was the home page. I think it is very important to have a strong opening and theirs works well. Upon visiting the site, you are greeted with a very well organized home page. It includes the latest news/updates about Joseph Smith papers as well as videos, podcasts, and their Facebook page. There is also a search bar, menus, some pictures of the documents, and a quick “about the Joseph Smith project”. The podcasts that are featured are not available in full on the website but multiple different platforms to listen to them on are listed and linked. One small detail about the homepage that I wish was different was how Facebook is linked. When you click on Facebook, instead of opening it up in a new tab, it takes over the one that had the Joseph Smith Papers open on. Such a minor detail but one to consider especially since they seem to not be actively using Facebook, their last post was in 2023. I personally would prefer for it to open a new, separate tab so I could continue my browsing on both sites at the same time.
Overall, I feel this website could use some improvement. My biggest issue with how it is laid out currently is that to the general public, it might feel like a puzzle of sorts. By no means is this website’s purpose to recruit new followers of the church but if they made it more accessible and readable, maybe they’d find a few new people along the way. With everything being said, I still do respect this website and project. It is very easy to tell the people who have been working on it are very passionate about their beliefs and have put countless hours into it. Although sometimes showing a bit of bias, I imagine it would be hard not to when it comes to talking about your life’s work.
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/
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