Archer Library: Judaic Studies: Databases

Database Search Tips

AND requires all specified words to appear in each item

e.g. kibbutz* AND education*

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

e.g. Holocaust OR Shoah

NOT excludes terms not desired

e.g. Hebrew NOT Yiddish

Combining ideas

e.g. (Jew* OR Judaism) AND (orthodox OR reform) AND (women* or feminis*)

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

Click for a complete list of the Library's databases in religious studies, history, political science and literature.

Best Bets

Index to Jewish Periodicals
This database provides a comprehensive guide to English-language articles, book reviews, and feature stories in more than 160 journals devoted to Jewish affairs. Index to Jewish Periodicals is intended for students of Jewish thought and others interested in contemporary Jewish and Middle Eastern affairs. Journal coverage dates back as far as 1988.
Index of Articles on Jewish Studies (RAMBI)
The Index of Articles on Jewish Studies - is a selective bibliography of articles in the various fields of Jewish studies and in the study of Eretz Israel. Material listed in Rambi is compiled from thousands of periodicals and from collections of articles - in Hebrew, Yiddish, and European languages- mainly from the holdings of the Jewish National and University Library, a world center for research on the Jewish people and Eretz Israel.
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.

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