Archer Library: Biblical Studies: Databases

Database Search Tips

AND requires all specified words to appear in each item

e.g. Old Testament AND postcolonial*

Corinthians II 10-13 AND war

OR requires any of the specified words to appear in each item

e.g. Torah OR Pentateuch

NOT excludes terms not desired

e.g. predestination NOT Calvin*

Combining ideas

e.g. Leviticus AND (homosexual* OR gay*)

prioritize your concepts to begin your search with the most important one
consider additional concepts to use, if necessary, to reduce or expand retrieval
if the database has a thesaurus, either online or print, check for suggested terms

Best Bets

ATLA Religion Database
This full text database is a collection of major religion and theology journals selected by some of the major religion scholars in the United States. Journals representing all major religious faiths, major denominations, and language groups are included. Information dates as far back as 1949, and coverage continues through the present.
Religious & Theological Abstracts
R&TA provides summaries of articles appearing in scholarly journals in the fields of Religion and Theology. It currently abstracts more than 400 journals, with summaries produced by a team of scholars from around the world. Coverage includes journals relating to Christianity, Judaism, and other world religions. English language abstracts are provided for articles in French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Afrikaans, Hebrew, Italian, and Spanish.

Click here for a complete list of the Library's databases in religious studies.

Academic Search Complete
Academic Search Complete is the comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 5,300 full-text periodicals, including 4,400 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 9,300 journals and a total of 9,810 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc.
JSTOR
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Full text of backfiles of more than 1100 journals in the humanities, social sciences, sciences and education. Coverage is from volume 1 on, excluding latest 3-5 years.
CPIQ Canadian Periodicals (Gale OneFile)
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An index to Canadian periodicals (English and French), plus full text for some publications; also includes selected sections of The Globe and Mail.

Not finding enough material?

if you have combined several concepts using AND, start again and search only the most important one. Then add the next most important one, and so forth
look at each concept and see if you can think of additional synonyms (use OR)
if you are searching free-text, look at your terms carefully and think of ways to broaden your phrasing

Finding too much material?

look at a sample of the items retrieved; if a high proportion is not relevant, add another concept
sometimes irrelevant records may be eliminated by NOTing out a particular aspect or population
try limiting by language, date, form of material, particular field instead of free-text