Electronic Research Resources
for DTS Grads

Learn how to connect to grad resources

DTS grads should use the links on this page to connect to databases. Do not use the links on student resource pages because they are authenticated differently and the software will block you if you attempt to connect through those student links.

When you click some of the links on this page you will be asked to login using your library ID and PIN. (Read about your library ID and PIN here.)

Former student, not grad? ATLAS is limited by contract to graduates who completed a program. But anyone can use the free databases such as THEOLDI and BiBiL. In addition, anyone can also purchase personal access to ATLAS for only $99.00 per year (2007 price). To subscribe, see http://www.atla.com/products/catalogs/catalogs_atlas.html

Full-text resources

These databases allow you to search by subject for articles, books, etc. They provide the full-text of the items online for you to download or print.

  • ATLAS is the full-text subset of ATLA. ATLAS provides access to articles and book reviews from many major English language theological journals and from some especially important non-English journals. It includes literature on Bible, theology, church history, pastoral ministries, world missions, and religion in general. ATLAS focuses on scholarly theological literature but includes a sampling of non-scholarly publications about popular Christian culture and church life especially from the mainline Protestant viewpoint. The ATLAS database is rapidly growing. At present (Feb 2005) over 50,000 full-text scholarly theological journal articles are available online. This includes articles from Bib Sac, JBL, JETS and a host of important titles. At present the articles are delivered as pdf graphic images. The graphic files are big so downloading or printing may take considerable time. Within a few years the graphical page images will be supplemented with fully searchable texts of the articles, and downloading will be much faster.
  • Review of Biblical Literature provides full-text of substantive reviews of scholarly literature in biblical studies. Updated weekly but the books tend to be about two years old before they are reviewed. About 400 reviews per year. Sponsored by Society for Biblical Literature. Free to anyone.
  • ResearchBase Research Base provides access to the full-text of a few thousand popular and scholarly articles on contemporary theological and cultural topics, especially issues of interest to college students. The journal FirstThings is one of the main sources. Works from a socially, politically, theologically, and culturally conservative viewpoint predominate. LeadershipU ResearchBase is hosted by Campus Crusade for Christ and is available to everyone at no cost.
  • Internet Sacred Text Archive Largest full-text archive of "holy books" on the net. Covers religion, mythology, legend, folk-lore, occult, and sacred books or canonical texts in many religious traditions (Koran, Bible, Gita, etc.) Supplement with Religious and Sacred Texts Internet resources which provides more links to full-text of sacred texts.
  • PubMed/MEDLINE provides very full international coverage of scholarly literature in the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, and health care systems, 1950s to date. Full coverage of psychiatry, limited coverage of clinical psychology and practitioner counseling literature. Over 15 million articles indexed and abstracted from thousands of journals. Citations to many of the journals are linked to the full-text on the publisher's web sites, and many of the federally funded studies are now becoming available free, but in most cases there is a fee or subscription required to display the articles. Provided by the National Library of Medicine.
  • ERIC cites and abstracts 1 million items in the field of [secular] education, of which about 50% are journal articles and 50% are unpublished ERIC documents, plus a few books and theses. Covers all educational levels. Does not cover religious education per se. 1966 to the present. Utilizes ERIC thesaurus for subject headings. ERIC is beginning to link the citations to the full-text of articles on the publisher's web sites, and some of the federally funded studies are now becoming available free, but in most cases there is a fee or subscription required to display the articles. For a modest fee, you can order full-text copies directly from ERIC at www.edrs.com or by calling 800-443-ERIC.
  • Christian Classics Ethereal Library CCEL is a collection of free full-text documents. Mostly book length classics including the Bible, commentaries, hymns, sermons, many texts from the history of Christianity and some fiction. This is one of the largest sites for public domain religious books.
  • Ingenta. This database is available free to anyone. It cites articles from 25,000 periodicals, including popular magazines and scholarly journals on a very wide range of topics. Provides full-text to 4,500 journals, mostly scientific. Searching is free, but fee for document delivery ranges from $15 to $40 per article. Online, fax and mail delivery methods are supported. Includes old CARL Uncover database.

Back to top

Bibliographic databases (citations only)

These databases allow you to search by subject so you can to identify relevant books and articles. They provide citations but NOT the actual books and articles themselves. You then must use a bookstore, library, or document supplier to obtain a photocopy of the article or a loan of the book cited. Follow this link for information about how to obtain the items cited.

  • BIBLOS, the DTS library catalog.
  • BILDI portion of THEOLDI. BILDI (Documentation for Biblical Literature, Innsbruck) cites scholarly journal articles, essays, books and book reviews in several languages on a variety of biblical and theological topics from 1985 to date. Most items in BILDI are also in ATLA, but BILDI provides more thorough coverage of European literature. There is both a German and an English Interface. Online help is available. BILDI is hosted by the University of Innsbruck and is available to everyone at no cost.
  • BiBIL BiBIL (Bibliographie Biblique Informatisée de Lausanne=Biblical Bibliography of Lausanne) cites scholarly journal articles, essays, and monographs in several languages primarily on biblical topics but also on theology in general. Coverage from 1950-1985 is very incomplete, but from 1986 to date a significant number of important journals are included. As of Sept 2003 there is now an English interface. Most works cited in BiBIL are also in ATLA, but BiBIL records are cataloged in distinctive ways, so it is a nice supplement to ATLA, particularly if you need to be thorough. BiBIL is hosted by the University of Lausanne and is available to everyone at no cost.
  • RIM. The Research in Ministry database lists and abstracts most but not all North American DMin dissertations. You may search by author, title, subject, keyword, etc. Keyword includes words from titles, subjects, abstracts. ATLA provides free access to this resource, but the number of simultaneous users is limited because ATLA has to pay a license fee for each user. So when you try to use RIM you may get a message that all sessions are in use. If so, try later.
  • OCLC WorldCat is a key resource for almost any topic. It contains over 50 million bibliographic records for books and other media. It provides nearly exhaustive coverage of English language books and significant coverage of non-English works (but limited coverage of government documents and unpublished works like manuscripts and dissertations). For the most part WorldCat does not cite individual journal articles or book reviews or essays in books. Use LC subject headings just like you would in the library catalog, for example: "Bible N.T. Corinthians, 1st, xv"  for 1 Cor 15.
  • RAMBI/Index of Articles on Jewish Studies lists citations from scholarly periodicals on all aspects of Judaica, modern and ancient, (including biblical studies and rabbinics), and area studies of the land of Israel. Coverage begins with 1985. It is possible to search (and display) in both English and Hebrew if you have Java enabled. All subject headings are in English. You may use the usual logical operators (and, or, not), the * (asterisk) symbol as a wildcard, and the % (percent) symbol followed by a number as a proximity operator to indicate you want two words within a particular number of words of each other. Subject headings for books of the Bible look like this: "Genesis (Book of): 14". RAMBI is hosted by the Jewish National Library at Hebrew University and is available to everyone free of charge.
  • ALEPH Jewish Nat'l Lib, Hebrew U is the Catalog of Jewish National Library and Hebrew University. The library collects all material published in Israel or published about Israel anywhere in the world. Its collections of Hebraica and Judaica are the largest in the world. Also available is the Union List of Serials in Israel. Both English and Hebrew interface. Hebrew fonts required to search in Hebrew. For older works you may still need to consult the printed catalog, Kiryat Sepher (shelved in periodical stacks).
  • IRM/International Review of Mission Online database cumulates bibliographies from the well known journal. This database cites both scholarly journal articles and books in several languages from 1912 to present. All aspects of missions and evangelism are covered. The BRS character interface is no longer available. IRM is hosted by the Edinburgh University and is available at no cost to everyone via the Internet.

Back to top

Gateways to good web sites

  • Wabash Center Gateway provides links to religious and especially Christian Internet resources. Aims to serve needs of clergy and seminary faculty and students. Sometimes difficult to use because of the organizational structure. This may be the biggest gateway to high quality theological Internet sites.
  • Yale's Research Guide for Christianity. Excellent annotated guide to library and Internet resources selected to meet the needs of the average seminarian. Links to library catalogs, key theological reference books, journals, internet sites, primary sources. Includes many books and resources not available over the Internet.
  • Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, and the LC catalog covers much (but not all) of what LC owns. The depth is staggering. However, WorldCat is more comprehensive than the LC catalog.
  • Religious and Theological Libraries (mostly US). This is a good list of theological library catalogs on the Internet.

Back to top