Tips for Using ATLA via EBSCO

The American Theological Library Association Religion database is the key database for seminarians. ATLA provides good coverage of Christianity and selective but still substantial coverage of other world religions, especially Islam, Hinduism and Judaism. It indexes articles and book reviews from most major English language theological journals and from some especially important non-English journals (particularly German). It also indexes essays/chapters from selected festschriften, conference proceedings and other multi-author books. ATLA covers literature on Bible, theology, church history, pastoral ministries, christian education, and world missions. ATLA focuses on scholarly theological literature but includes a significant sampling of non-scholarly publications about popular Christian culture and church life especially from the mainline Protestant viewpoint. (For additional coverage of popular evangelical magazines, see Christian Periodical Index.) It provides very limited and incomplete coverage of denominationally specific matters like canon law and it tries not to duplicate PM and denominational indexes. (For example, ATLA has an agreement with Catholic Periodical and Literature Index not to duplicate coverage of the many popular RC magazines CPLI covers.) ATLA also indexes a very small fraction of Christian fiction, short stories, poems and children's literature. As of 2008, ATLA cites 537K articles, 494K reviews, and 225K essays. About 300,000 journal articles and book reviews are available online.

We access the ATLA database through the EBSCO interface. This guide assumes you are already familiar with generic EBSCO features. If you are not, check the EBSCO resources here. Assuming that you already know how to use the EBSCO interface in general, let's turn our attention to ATLA-specific issues not covered in the generic EBSCO documentation.

Bible Searches in ATLA

Bible passages are designated in two different ways in ATLA, using two different fields. Understanding how these fields are used is the key to successful Bible searching. This is particularly true because ATLA does not follow the Library of Congress conventions for Bible entries.

Using the subject field

ATLA uses a Bible subject heading which looks like this: >>Subject: Bible. Corinthians I 11-14

There is a period after Bible. First epistle is indicated by Roman numeral "I" (uppercase i) and chapters by Arabic "11-14". Notice that specific verses are not indicated at all. In fact, even specific chapters are lacking; rather, ranges of chapters are used. For 1 Cor the ranges are 1-4, 5-10, 11-14, 15-16. To obtain a work about chapter 13 you must search for "11-14" and then browse through the list of all items for that range of chapters.

But how are you to know what ranges of chapters are grouped together? How are you to know it is 11-14 and not some other range? One approach is to browse the subject index. Another approach is to do a keyword search like "1 Cor 11" and then look at a few matching records to see what subject heading is used.

The subject browse looks like this:

Notice the period after Bible is necessary when you browse.

The ATLA subject field is indexed so more specific headings for chapters "post up" to the book as a whole. For example all the records under >>Subject: Bible. Ephesians 4-6 are also under >>Subject: Bible. Ephesians.

Using the Scripture citation field

In 1986 ATLA added a separate scripture citation field and began to provide chapter and verse specific citations. >>Scripture citation: Corinthians, 1st 13:8-12 Notice ordinal 1st, and Arabic numerals for both chapters and verses.

A browse of the scripture citation fields looks like this:

The scripture citation field is indexed so that verse-specific entries post up to chapter specific entries, and chapters post up to the book as a whole. For example, the search >>Scripture citation: Corinthians, 1st 13 will pick up all specific verses on chapter 13 in the SC index such as 13:8-12.

If you are browsing for specific verses, then always explore next and previous pages. One reason is that the system sorts character by character, not numerically, and the exploratory browse helps you find unexpected sequences spread over multiple pages. Notice how 2:1 and 2:2 are separated in the following browse:

2:1
2:10
2:11-16
2:13
next page . . .
2:15
2:2 (note 2 between 15 and 20)
2:20

Another reason to explore next and previous pages is that a specific verse can be hiding in a range of verses sorted to another page. In the following example . . .

2:31-8
2:31-3
2:32
2:33
next page . . .
2:34
3:1

. . . verse 34 is on the first page in the entry 2:31-38 and on the second page as 2:34.

Note also colons sort after numbers, so Genesis 1:1 is separated from Genesis 1 as follows.

Genesis 1
Genesis 1-11
Genesis 1-2
Genesis 1-4
Genesis 10
Genesis 11
Genesis 19
Genesis 1:1
Genesis 1:1-13
Genesis 1:2
Genesis 2

Because of problems like this, I usually just search for chapters in the SC field without specifying verses. (Remember verses post up to chapters, so everything indexed under Genesis 1:1 is also indexed under the chapter Genesis 1.)

Records cataloged since 1986 often (not always) have both a Bible subject field AND a scripture citation field:>>Subject: Bible. Corinthians I 11-14 >>Scripture citation: Corinthians, 1st 13:8-12

Here (again) is an example of a record with both fields:

Some pre-1986 works are also cataloged with the SC field because ATLA has done some retrospective cataloging after the 1986 rule change, and they continue to update old records with the SC field.

Although there are many exceptions, the recent practice seems to be that works about broad topics like authorship or textual criticism of an entire book of the bible, or works about a large portion of a book, will have a subject heading but not a scripture citation field.

General guidelines for Bible lookup

Here are some general guidelines for finding works on Bible passages in ATLA.

1. Use the Scripture Citation field. If you have any doubt at all about the right format, or if you want to try a verse specific lookup, then begin by browsing the scripture citation field. Browsing will confirm what the correct format is. It will identify ranges of chapters or verses you may wish to include. If you are certain of the proper format, you can execute a scripture citation search without browsing, designating chapter but not verses, e.g.,:>>Scripture citation: Corinthians, 1st 13 The main disadvantage of a scripture citation lookup is that you cannot get comprehensive retrieval this way because of the records that have Bible subject fields but lack the SC field.
2. Be very careful if you try to exactly match a subject heading like "Bible. Corinthians I 11-14". Punctuation is more flexible when you search than when you browse. Even though, when searching, you can optionally omit the period after Bible, and capitalization does not matter, and extra spaces cause no problems, it is still easy to make a mistake. One easy way to guarantee correct form is to browse or to click a hyperlink in a record. Then you can pick "revise search" to edit as needed. Often you can simply omit the bible part of the heading like this: Corinthians I 11-14. See image below.
3. To do a comprehensive Bible passage search, use both the Subject field and the Scripture citation field, linking them with a logical or as in Figure 1040.
   

   Figure 1040: Combining Subject and Scripture Citation

   Of course this means you must determine what range of chapters is used in the subject field for the specific chapter you need. Browsing is one way to do that.

Book Reviews in ATLA

ATLA is a major source for reviews of theological books. Because some reviews use initials instead of author's first name, and some reviews omit book subtitles, use last name and a few words from the title to search for reviews. Here is a search for Buist Fanning, Verbal Aspect in the New Testament.

"Author" could mean author of the book or author of the review; that occasionally confuses students.

Essays in ATLA

ATLA indexes essays and chapters in festschriften and other multi-author books. Once you have searched ATLA and identified essays of interest, then you must determine if DTS owns the book that contains the essay, and obtain the book call number. The author of the essay and the title of the essay may not be listed in the Library catalog. You must search BIBLOS by name of book editor (not name of essay author) and/or by the title of the book (not title of the essay) to get the book call number.

Limiting to articles available full-text online

Don't do this! Some ATLA articles are available full-text online but most are not available online. Of the articles that are avilable online, some are stored at the EBSCO website, some are stored at a publisher website, and still others elsewhere. The difference is very important. When you limit a search to full-text, you will match only articles stored at the EBSCO website. So this option delivers less than you would expect.

Using Special Indexes

ATLA includes some special indexes. You should read the online help about these indexes before using them, because they can both help and hurt you. For example, there is a classification code assigned to book records that looks something like a subject heading. It appears only on book records so you will retrieve only book records if you use it. That might not be what you expect or want. The special indexes can add precision to your searches. For example, search for "sermon*" by subject and retrieve 10,000 records. About half are sermons and half are articles about sermons. There is also a special subject genre field. Search for sermon* by subject genre and you retrieve only the 5000 sermons. (The general subject category includes both the genre sermons and the topic sermons.) You will almost never need to use these special indexes, but perhaps as much as two percent of the time you could benefit from using them, so it is worth while to read about them after you are familiar with the basic indexes.

Displaying full-text articles online

Some of the articles are available online. If an article is available online as part of the database you are searching, and is stored at the EBSCO website, then there is a clickable link that says "PDF full-text" or "HTML full-text". HTML documents usually lack page numbers and usually convert footnotes to endnotes. Bad. Use pdf. It preserves page numbers, footnotes, exotic fonts, charts, etc.

If the link says "Linked Full Text," that means the article is available online from another EBSCO database or from an ejournal we subscribe to through EBSCO. It could be pdf or html.

If some of the articles in the journal are available online, but they are stored at a publisher's site or some other non-EBSCO location, then there is a clickable link that says "Check full text". That means the article may be available online if you click the link. Some articles in that journal are available online and this may be one of them. The link will take you via an openURL resolver to a listing of what is available and where. When you follow that link, you may have to search again for the specific article in another database. So you need to know the author and title and journal volume and year. It is hard to remember all that. So when you follow the "Check full text" link, it is wise to right click the link and pick "Open in a New Tab". That way ATLA is in one tab of your browser and the new window in another. You can read rather than remember the citation.

Transferring Records to EndNote

It is possible to export records from ATLA and import them into EndNote bibliographic management software. (A general overview of using EndNote is here.)

Search. From the search results screen in Figure 2000, click the folder below each record you would like to export (step 1). Then click on "Folder view" (step 2).

The Folder Contents screen will appear (Fig 2010). Choose the records you want exported (step 3) and click the "Export" icon (step 4).

The Export Manager Screen will appear (Figure 2020). Choose the option you wish to use for exporting (step 5) and click "Save" (step 6).

There are two ways to export to EndNote using filters: Direct Export to a specific program like EndNote, and Generic Export via an intermediate file load.

1. To use Direct Export, choose the "Direct Export to EndNote" radio button on the right (step 5), then click save (step 6). EndNote will run automatically, prompt you for the name of an EndNote library to use, then import the records into that library.
2. To use the Intermediate File approach, choose "Generic bibliographic manager software" (step 5), then click save (step 6). The file will be saved on your computer. Close your web browser if you wish. Open EndNote and choose a library. Go to "File . . . Import." Choose the file you saved in "Import Data File." Under "Import Option," choose "Other Filters" and pick the ATLA filter fro EBSCO. When you click "Import," it will add the new citations to that library.

Exercises and Homework

Looking for an ATLA homework assignment? See assignments here.