SANDY — Is LDS Church history reliable when that history is produced by the church itself?

Church historians today employ rigorous standards, a longtime member of the Church History Department said Thursday during a presentation at the FAIR Mormon Apologetics Conference.

Ronald O. Barney is a volume editor for the Joseph Smith Papers Project and executive producer of the KJZZ television series about the project.

"I know something about the rigor that has been applied to ensure that these volumes will stand for a long time and have a long shelf life," Barney said. "I don't believe we have to make any apologies to anybody." Dozens of outside reviewers have scrutinized it to ensure its dependability, he added.

The annual conference continues today at the South Towne Exposition Center in Sandy. The Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research is an independent group that defends the church against attacks on its faith, doctrine and history.

Barnery, who has spent 32 years on the staff of the LDS Church History Department, said that any history about the church, regardless of who produces it, should be scrutinized. "We can't be lazy about this," he said. "This religion is too important, and it is very defendable."

He acknowledged a sentiment of years past that the church has not been forthright in publishing its history.

He said things changed in 1972, when the Church Historian's Office became the Church Historical Department. At that time, a cadre of professional archivists "served as the platform to create an environment whereby the church could not only produce an excellent history, but could ensure that it was dependable," he said.

A milestone occurred in 1984, he said, when staff member Dean C. Jessee published "The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith." Jessee followed that up in 1989 with publication of the first volume of an intended multi-volume work on the papers of Joseph Smith.

The project stalled, then was jump-started at the end of the 1990s by what has become the Joseph Smith Papers Project. Barney said it has had as many as 59 people at a time working on it. The first of an anticipated 30 volumes was published last fall, and the second is due out in September.