Minor construction and renovation in the library

Wondering what noise is about? Construction of a new Special Collections (archives and rare books) facility on the 3d floor of Turpin is proceeding as follows.

• Phase one, May-Aug 2008
  Store CE curriculum lab material for the summer. Demolish walls around student lounge, Mosher conference room, and CE lab on the first floor of Mosher. Refinish. Move PhD carrels from Turpin 3d floor to Mosher 1st floor. Reconstitute CE lab on Mosher 1st floor. Student lounge and conference room will be permanently eliminated. Please use MMC dining area for snacks.
• Phase two, Aug-Nov 2008
  Construct new Special Collections facility on the Turpin 3d floor. Move into new facility. Relocate bindery on Mosher 2d floor.
• Phase three Nov 2008-Jan 2009
  Demolish walls around old Special Collections area and typing rooms on Mosher 2nd floor. Refinish. Move PhD carrels from 1st floor of Mosher to 2d floor of Mosher. Move AV media collection from basement to Mosher 1st floor.

Announcement posted 5/7/2008.

A Notice For New Grads

Graduating soon? Read about services and resources the library will continue to provide for you after graduation.

Announcement posted 4/30/2008

Book Sale April 24-25, 2008, 9:00 am - 3:00 pm

The book sale is complete. We sold over 1,000 vols. Thanks for making it a success. Next sale will be in 12 to 18 months.

Announcement updated 4/29/2008

Software Training in Media Center, Jan 28-Feb 15, 2008

Software training sessions scheduled for Spring 2008 have been completed. Next sessions will probably be Spring 2009. In the mean time, contact media center staff for personal help.

Announcement updated 2/18/2008

New Wireless Network

There are currently two wireless networks in the library. The old network is being phased out but will continue to be available in the Turpin wing of the library until summer 2009. The new network is rapidly spreading across the campus. The new network requires no special hardware or software and works with Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Mac OS 10. You can easily configure your computer to use the new network. The new network is scheduled to be available as follows.

Announcement updated 3/26/2008.

New Supplement to Turabian

The revised DTS Supplement to Turabian provides guidance on how to adapt Turabian 7th edition to DTS papers, theses, and dissertations. The new supplement omits the section on Internet resources that was in the old supplement because Turabian itself now treats them quite adequately. The supplement now includes more examples of special and potentially problematic source citations, e.g., lexica, theological encyclopedia, chapters from edited multi-volume works, etc. The supplement now specifies that bibliographic references must include a series title and number, if applicable, but the name of the series editor is now optional. New MS Word templates are also available.

Announcement posted 1/11/2008; revised 1/22

Library Tours for New Students, Jan 15-18, 2008

Tours scheduled for Spring 2008 have been completed. Next tours will be Fall 2008. In the mean time, contact library reference staff for personal help.

Announcement updated 1/21/2008.

Database Training Sessions

Database training sessions scheduled for Fall 2007 have been completed. Next sessions will be Fall 2008. In the mean time contact library reference staff for personal help.

Announcement revised 9/6/2007

New documentation: OTA/NTA Tips

OTA/NTA tips introduces you to the basics of searching Old Testament Abstracts and New Testament Abstracts using the EBSCO interface. OTA and NTA provide one-paragraph summaries of journal articles and essays about the Bible, biblical languages, and history and archaeology of the biblical era. These databases are major time savers. Learn how to make good use of them.

Announcement posted 12/11/2007

Some Library Statistics for Fiscal Year 2006-07

• The library spent $259,394 for library materials (books, journals, AV media, online subscriptions to databases, etc.) About one third of all items added to the collection were in the field of biblical studies, and one third were in the field of historical or systematic theology. The collection grew as follows.
  

  Item type	7/1/2006	Added in FY	DFEC in FY	7/1/2007
  Print volumes	208,046	4,416	-110	212,352
  Microforms	58,186	68	1	58,255
  Other	32,056	1,012	-40	33,028
  Total	298,288	5,496	-149	303,635

  DFEC = discarded(-) or found(+) or error corrected(+ or -)

  Technically this is a count of library owned materials listed in BIBLOS. Some items owned by the library are not listed in BIBLOS. For example, most archival holdings are not counted. Electronic resources licensed by the library but not owned by the library are not counted. For example, the library licenses access to hundreds of thousands of online journal articles not counted here.

• Total external circulation (loans + renewals) held steady at 96,147. So far we have seen little evidence of long term decline in use of books in favor of electronic resources. As in the past, about 50% of all loans were in the field of biblical studies.
• Many materials are used in the building without being borrowed or checked-out. A two week study in Feb 2006 and again in Feb 2007 showed in-house use equaled check-outs. So actual use of materials is twice what circulation statistics indicate. This has consistently been the ratio in other in-house use studies.
• Based on circulation statistics and extrapolations from the in-house use study, more than four million dollars worth of information resources were used during the year. And this doesn't count use of thousands of dollars of electronic resources. The library is a sharing mechanism that gives students a great return on their tuition.
• Users of BIBLOS executed over 289,098 successful queries (successful meaning records were retrieved).
• 51.7% of BIBLOS and library website usage was by people off campus. 1,314 people logged in to EZProxy 8,271 times from a location off campus in order to access databases from home. Students are using library resources from every location and at every time of the day, even when the library is closed.
• Library users downloaded 10,032 articles/documents from EBSCO or FirstSearch. No count is available for ATLAS articles downloaded via EBSCO, but this may represent another 10,000 downloads. However, we do know that DTS graduates, who have a unique login to ATLAS (not via EBSCO), downloaded 4,805 journal issues not included in the previous numbers. Use of online resources continues to grow.
• The front door photocell counted an average of 724 visits per day the library was open. (A visit is a round trip, not a single click of the photocell.) Large numbers of students continue to visit the building even though they can use library electronic resources from home.

Announcement posted 11/29/2007

ATLA subject headings for Bible passages have changed

ATLA has changed the standard form of entry for subject headings about Bible passages. It used to be like this:
Bible (NT) Corinthians I 11-14
but it is now like this:
Bible. Corinthians I 11-14

Note "(OT)" and "(NT)" no longer appear in the headings.

The form of entry for Scripture Citation field searches/browses has not changed. Confused about the distinction between the subject field and the scripture citation field? For a refresher in how to lookup Bible Passages in ATLA, see ATLA Tips.

Announcement posted 11/28/2007.

New database: Calvinism Resources Database

Calvinism Resources Database includes about 10,000 citations for journal articles, book essays, book reviews, and lectures. The list of journals indexed is unavailable but extensive. Browse by subject or author. Search by keyword, title, subject, author, journal, year, or abstract with Boolean AND and OR but no wildcard. Search and mark records. Save or print a bibliography from the marked records. Marks are deleted with a new search. Sorting works imperfectly, and records contain some typos. In some cases you must click a title to go to the fuller record for publication information, but these records cannot be added to a bibliography list. Maintained by the H. Henry Meeter Center for Calvin Studies and available free to all.

Announcement posted 9/12/2007.

New database: Philosopher's Index

Philosopher's Index cites scholarly journal articles, essays, books, and book reviews, published from 1940 to the present in English and major European languages. Most articles and essays are abstracted. PI focuses on aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphysics, but also includes literature on philosophy of education, history, science, religion and other fields. Try sample searches for religion, faith, free will, theism, interpretation (= hermeneutics), philosophical anthropology (= nature of man), soul and resurrection to get a feel for the range of useful topics covered.

Announcement posted 8/28/2007.

New database: JSTOR

JSTOR includes over 700 full-text scholarly journals in the fields of history, archaeology, classics, the arts, literature, psychology and various sciences, education, language, and much more. Coverage of theology/religion is weak, but this database is a good complement to our religious resources. JSTOR provides complete retrospective access for each journal from the year of inception up to a recent cutoff date, but does NOT supply access to very most recent volumes. (Recent is defined by the publisher but usually means the five most recent years are not available. This is meant to protect income the publishers make from current subscriptions.) Includes articles and book reviews.

Journals in JSTOR are listed in the library ejournal listing. So if you already have a journal citation, go to the ejournal list to see if that journal is included in jstor or one or our other ejournal packages.

You can go directly to JSTOR and search for articles. Search title, author, or full-text; limit by journal or discipline. Browse by discipline, journal, and issue. Use Boolean operators and some fancier features such as synonym expansion. Sorts by relevance, journal title, or year.

You can also use Internet search engines like Google and Yahoo and MSN Live Search to find JSTOR articles. But if you are off the Dallas campus when you search via these search engines, then you will not be able to display the actual articles unless you login to the library proxy server to authenticate your relation to DTS. See our tech note on engaging the proxy authentication mechanism to display articles. This is the most confusing aspect to using JSTOR when you are off campus. It is not an issue when you are on the Dallas campus.

Announcement posted 8/9/2007.

New database: Searchable Greek Inscriptions

The Searchable Greek Inscriptions database currently (May 2007) contains Greek inscriptions from Greece (including Crete, Cyprus, Thrace), the north coast of the Black Sea, Syria, Egypt, North Africa, Germany, and unknown provenances organized by period and corpora just like the IG outline. Browse by geographic area or search for words and phrases. Includes all Greek inscriptions formerly on the PHI cdrom, and PHI plans to expand the database. These inscriptions are not included in TLG (which consists of literary texts only). This website requires a Java enabled browser. Available free from Packard Humanities Institute. See our SGI tutorial for a brief intro to searching this database.

Announcement posted 5/21/2007

Director Retires

Robert Ibach, director of Turpin Library since 1986, will retire June 30, 2007. The seminary will host a reception in his honor April 4, 2007 at 2:00pm in Campbell 110. During his productive tenure as director, Turpin Library experienced strong growth and development. Forty thousand square feet were added to the library building in 1988. The print collection doubled, and 60,000 older volumes were reclassified from the Union Classification system to the Library of Congress classification system. Library software was installed to replace the card catalog and support all library staff functions. The library acquired access to numerous databases, electronic journals and ebooks, and deployed a website. Instruction in how to do library research became part of the core ThM curriculum. Our first full-time archivist was added to the staff.

Bob is an experienced field archaeologist and authored a book on the excavation of Hesban. Because of this avocation, he happened to be present in the valley of Megiddo during Israel's Six Day War of 1967—a story which he might be willing to tell you if you ask him. His real passion, though, is woodworking, and he has created many fine pieces, some of which are on display in his office. We wish him well as he continues to pursue his finely honed craft in an active and productive retirement.

Announcement posted 4/4/2007

Copy unavailable? Try this!

Suppose you find what you need listed in BIBLOS but all copies are unavailable. Then you can check to see what other libraries own the item. Just click the "Check nearby libraries" link.

Note this search looks for matching ISBNs (international standard book numbers) so it only searches for the exact edition specified by the ISBN. The same intellectual content may appear in multiple editions, such as hardback, paperback, American imprint, British imprint, etc. so an ISBN search is not an exhaustive search for all variant editions of the same intelletucal content. But it sure is easy!

Announcement posted 2006; revised 3/2007

Revised RTA tutorial

The revised Religious and Theological Abstracts tutorial provides a brief introduction to RTA database. Read about the new features.

Announcement posted 3/21/2007

Revised Accordance tutorial

The revised Accordance tutorial provides a brief introduction to Accordance Bible study software. Library reference staff and media center staff can provide additional assistance but for some issues you must contact the Accordance help desk.

Announcement posted 3/2007

Selected books from Special Collections now viewable online

Over 290 items from Turpin Library's Special Collections are now available online! Dates of publication span five centuries, from the 1500s through the 1900s. Browse them at http://rarebooks.dts.edu or access them by searching BIBLOS. See, for example, Heinrich Bullinger, Hundred Sermons on the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ, published in 1561.

The majority of the books scanned were theological, and subjects include premillenialism and biblical prophecy, especially Daniel and Revelation, covenant theology, and puritan writings. A few titles relate to the history of Dallas Theological Seminary.

Announcement posted 2/9/2007

New database: TLG cd-rom superseded by TLG Online

For more than a decade we have had access to the TLG cd-rom. But now we have access to the expanded TLG Online. The current online release of Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) includes nearly all surviving Greek texts dating from 8th century B.C. to A.D. 600, and the majority of surviving works up the fall of Byzantium in A.D. 1453. It does not include "non-literary" documents like business records, general correspondence, inscriptions, etc. Find information about the authors and works included in the TLG Library in the Canon of Greek Authors and Works at the TLG website. See our Introduction to Searching TLG, especially the information about use of fonts and the warnings about the new lemma search feature (still quite buggy/unreliable as of Feb 2007.) Wondering what the difference is between Perseus and TLG? Perseus provides convenient English translations for a limited but important body of searchable Greek text. TLG offers no English, but covers far more text. Both provide links to LSJ lexicon entries. Use Perseus to save time. Use TLG to be thorough.

Announcement posted 2/5/2007

New database: Communication Abstracts

CommAbs covers approximately 130 of the most important scholarly journals about communication. Coverage of mass communication topics (journalism, broadcasting, advertising, plus technological, legal and business aspects of mass communication) predominates but you will also find material about interpersonal communication in various social and cultural settings, and material about rhetoric and oratory. See introduction to ComAbs for fuller description and search tips.

Announcement posted 11/2006

Search BIBLOS from Your Browser Searchbox

You can search BIBLOS from the built-in searchboxes in Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7. This will allow you to search BIBLOS any time you wish without going to the library website and without logging in. Learn how to add BIBLOS to browser searchbox.

Announcement posted 11/2006

New database: Index Theologicus

Index theologicus is important as a current awareness source. Journals are indexed within 24 hours of the time they are received at the Tübingen university library, so this is by far the most current theological database. See our Intro to IxTheo for fuller description and search tips.

Announcement posted 9/21/2006

New database: eJournal List

Most but not all of the ejournals available from the library are included in the Serials Solutions ejournal listing. Use this resource if you already have a citation to a specific journal article and you want to know if that article is available full-text online. See Finding Online Articles In The eJournal List for a brief tutorial.

Announcement posted 9/14/2006

SEMINARYLIBRARY.COM: A DIGITAL THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY ONLINE

The trial (described below) is now complete. Now is the time to get your personal login. Don't delay.

Announcement posted August 2006.

SEMINARYLIBRARY.COM: A DIGITAL THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY ONLINE

Note this trial is now complete, but we have retained the notice for a few months for its informative value.

Preview the beta version of SeminaryLibrary.com and take the opportunity to submit suggestions to make this promising product even better. April through August 2006 is a tuning up period. Please report all problems to pspinelli@logos.com.

SeminaryLibrary.com is the result of an ongoing effort by Logos Bible Software to digitize older theological books. The database includes reference works, commentaries, biographies, sermon collections, hymnals, and monographs in Bible, theology, church history, pastoral ministries, and a wide range of other topics of interest to seminary students. Only public domain (i.e., pre-1923, copyright expired) items are included. At present (April 2006) only 7000 titles are available, but several hundred titles are added each month. Quite a few important older works are already included. This could become a very important database. Search author, title or subject, and view matching books. Search the full text of any single book and display all matching pages as graphic images. Logical operators and most phrase-searching not supported in the beta version of software. Images may take a long time to download if you have a slow Internet connection. This link uses a generic login. Personal login allows some additional customization.

Announcement posted 4/19/2006

Linking from Google Scholar to BIBLOS

Google Scholar now indexes a subset of the WorldCat database. So Google Scholar can help you find relevant books and identify which libraries own those books, including Turpin Library. That's right, a search of Google Scholar can lead you to a record in BIBLOS. Here is an example of how it works.

Announcement posted 2/28/2006

How to purchase dissertations

You can often borrow copies of dissertations via Interlibrary Loan. However, you also have a purchase option.

Use Dissertation Express to purchase copies of dissertations with your credit card. Includes DTS dissertations. Older dissertations are available only in paper or microform; more recent ones (generally from 1997 on) are also available as digital images in a pdf wrapper. A typical dissertation download is 12 to 14 megabytes. Search by author, title, or order number. Cannot search or display abstracts. Use DAI for subject searching. Additional info.

Reminder of long standing service

New databases: AIGYPTOS and LDAB

AIGYPTOS aims to provde full coverage of publications in the field of Egyptology from 1978 to date. Currently adds three to five thousand records annually. Lists books, dissertations, articles, and reviews. No full-text, but includes publication information, ISBN, subjects, and keywords in British English even for non-English titles. Click the flag for an English interface and follow instructions for entering the database. The Search page describes use of Boolean operators. Over a dozen searchable fields with an browse index available for any field. Click on a title in the results list for more detail. See Help for instructions on searching. Aigyptos is a joint project of the Institute of Egyptology of the University of Munich and the Department of Egyptology at the University of Heidelberg and is available to all at no cost.

The Leuven Database of Ancient Books (LDAB) lists sources for images, facsimiles, transcriptions and related information about ancient texts. Over 8000 Greek MSS. Uses phrase searching. Boolean operators not supported, but wildcarding is automatic. Use New Testament as author name. For book name, use book of the Bible; e.g., Hebrews, Romans, but Mt for Matthew, and Joh for John. Try abbreviations to bring up the correct form. To search include necessary information only. For example, to investigate Heb 3:13 in P13, type P13 in the Repertories field and type Hebrews in the Book field. Specifying chapter and verse will miss the record for "Hebrews 2.14-5.5; 10-12". Sort by author, date, etc., as desired. This database is a free public Internet resource.

Announcement posted 12/19/2005

Scofield archives

The DTS Archives recently solicited and received a small collection of research material from Dr. William A. BeVier, a DTS alumnus. The collection is composed of correspondence and copies of resources he collected while writing A Biographical Sketch of C. I. Scofield, his masters thesis at SMU in 1960. This collection is significant because it includes copies of several of the limited original resources concerning Scofield, which are housed in various repositories. The collection also gives insight into BeVier's research process and represents a time when photocopiers were not common.

BeVier's collection complements some other small collections in the DTS Archives. In 2002 we received a donation of fifteen letters (forty six leaves) C. I. Scofield wrote to Frank W. Boyle, a pastor Scofield mentored. The Archives staff created a collection of photocopies of documents at Scofield Memorial Church. The material copied included church records related to Scofield and L. S. Chafer as well as a few Scofield Family papers. Another collection in the Archives consists of photocopies of two letters written by Scofield to his daughters. There is also some Scofield material in unprocessed papers related to L. S. Chafer. We are creating records in the library's online catalog to help potential researchers to locate this archival material. The collections have greater value as a group than they have individually, and would be a good starting point for research about Scofield.

Announcement posted 10/31/2005

New database: Elenchus of ETL

Since 1920 the print vols of the "Elenchus" section of the journal Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses have been an important bibliography for Christian theology in the broad sense. A small portion of this bibliography covering vol 74 (1998) to date has recently become available as Elenchus ETL Online. As this database grows it will be an increasingly important resource. For now you must still consult the print vols for retrospective coverage. Print vols continue to be shelved at the index table.

Elenchus ETL covers church history, biblical studies, dogmatics, ethics, pastoral theology, church education, and Roman Catholic canon law. It is valued especially for systematic theology. Don't confuse it with Elenchus of Biblica which focuses on biblical studies. ETL indexes books, articles, essays, and dissertations mostly in European languages (including English, of course). Emphasis is on scholarly literature. Roman Catholic sources are covered especially well. Each year about 12,000 new items are indexed.

ETL uses a subject heirarchical classified arrangement (outline) which requires you to browse broad subject categories although there are separate indexes for authors, and names of people as subjects. In the database, the "thesaurus" index searches these broad subject categories. If you don't find a match in the thesaurus index, do a keyword search (of title words), view records in detail (not the abridged display), and identify the subject categories used for those records. Then execute a second search using those codes to retrieve additional potentially relevant citations.

This is Elenchus of ETL, not Elenchus of Biblica (the important bibliography of biblical studies).

Announcement posted 9/21/2005

New database: Linguistic Bibliography

Lingusitic Bibliography cites scholarly books and journal articles on linguistics and all the languages of the world, including linguistic aspects of psychology, sociology, anthropology, and computer science. Missiologists should note it is weak in applied linguistics. The database covers only 1993 to date, so it is still small. It is based on print vols of UNESCO Bibliographie Linguistique (which begins in 1950 and is much more complete). So-called subjects are really 100 possible classification codes. Unsure which class code to use? Do a keyword search (of title words), view records in detail (not the abridged display), and identify the class codes used for those records. Then execute a second search using those codes.

Announcement posted 9/15/2005

New Service: "Due Soon" Early Notice

Always forgetting when your books are due? Want to avoid overdue fines? A new library service may help you. The library now sends "Due Soon" early warning notices two days before borrowed items are due. This reminds users to return or renew the items before they become overdue. This is a courtesy notice. The library is not obligated to remind borrowers just before an item comes due, and failure to receive a notice does not absolve borrowers of responsibility for returning items on time.

Announcement posted 8/2005.

New Policy: Early Privileges for Incoming Students

Incoming new students who have registered and paid for the upcoming semester are now extended full student privileges two weeks before their first semester begins so they can work ahead on assignments.

The policy concerning prospective students remains unchanged. Prospective students who have been admitted for an upcoming semester but have not registered and paid for the current semester are not current students and are not eligible for borrowing privileges. Contact the library if you are in this category and have special needs.

Announcement posted 8/2005.

New databases: Old Testament Abstracts and New Testament Abstracts

For decades the print vols of OTA and NTA have been mainstays of biblical research. Now Turpin Library provides access to OTA and NTA online.

Old Testament Abstracts and New Testament Abstracts abstract journal articles and essays on the bible, biblical languages, and history and archaeology of the biblical era. Most important English language biblical studies journals and many non-English journals are included. Abstracts are always in English. Emphasis is on scholarly literature, but some popular magazines are included. Many theological viewpoints are represented, but there is some emphasis on Roman Catholic sources. OTA and NTA are available online and also in print. As of July 2005, OTA database held 40,000 records (27,000 journal articles; 7,000 essays; the rest books) for literature dating from 1977 to date, just like the print vols. As of July 2005, NTA database contained 33,000 articles abstracts, 13,800 essay and book abstracts. The NTA database covers publications dating from 1985. On the other hand, print vols of NTA begin with 1956. Eventually the database will be as complete as the print. The print volumes have scripture passage and Greek or Hebrew word indexes, but there are no subject headings so you must browse under broad subject categories outlined in the table of contents for subject access.

Announcement revised 7/27/2005

PINs changed for enhanced privacy and security

All library PINs/passwords were changed 12/29/2004. Your new PIN/password is your last name. Only the first ten characters were used if your last name is longer than 10 characters. Common punctation is retained, for example hyphen (-), straight apostrophe ('), period (.) and space ( ). If your name includes diacritics (such as umlaut, accent, etc.) then contact us for information about your password. For example:

For additional privacy/security, you may use the "My Account" module of BIBLOS to change your PIN/password at any time. The library encourages you to pick a secure and memorable password immediately rather than retaining the name-based default value we have supplied for you. As always, library circulation staff cannot see your PIN but they can change it for you if you present photo ID to prove who you are.

Why have we made this change? Under the old system, each library user was assigned a default PIN consisting of the last 4 digits of his/her social security number. Many people retained this PIN rather than picking a new one. This left some potentially sensitive information in the library database. Old PINs have been purged from the library database to guarantee we do not have even partial ssn information about anyone. The library database has not suffered a breech of security, and we have no reason to believe any confidential information has escaped, but malicious crackers daily attempt to break into the library server, so we have taken this precautionary step.

Announcement posted 12/28/2004.

DTS grads may now use the ATLA/ATLAS database

Turpin Library has purchased access to the ATLA/ATLAS database for DTS graduates. There are over one million citations in ATLA, some of which are linked to complete articles. In fact, 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 images will be supplemented with fully searchable texts of the articles, and downloading will be much faster.)

ATLA provides fairly complete coverage of Christianity and selective coverage of other religions from 1949 to date (and retrospective indexing is underway). ATLA indexes articles and book reviews from most major English language theological journals and from some especially important non-English journals. It also indexes essays/chapters from selected festschriften, conference proceedings, and other multi-author books. ATLA indexes literature on Bible, theology, church history, pastoral ministries, world missions, and current events. The focus is scholarly theological literature, but it includes a sampling of non-scholarly publications about popular Christian culture and church life especially from the mainline Protestant viewpoint.

Access ATLA from the Electronic Research Resources for Alumni page and login using your DTS ID and library PIN/password. ATTEMPTS TO CONNECT FROM OTHER PAGES WILL FAIL because those other pages require current student logins.

See here for more information about your DTS ID and library PIN/password.

Announcement posted 12/14/2004.

9,000 eBooks Now Listed in BIBLOS

What is an eBook?
You can read these electronic books online whether you are on campus or at home. You do need to create a personal account so you can "checkout" (view) any ebook for 24 hours use. Without the personal account, you can only view an ebook for 15 minute increments.

eBook records in BIBLOS
Since 2001, Turpin Library has offered students access to ebooks through the Netlibrary website. We acquire additional ebooks every year and now have access to almost 30,000. Over the years our ebook collection has been little-used. We believe adding records to BIBLOS for selected titles will make these valuable resources more visible to all students.

A typical ebook record in BIBLOS looks like the image at left. Just click "URL" to display the complete book.

Personal Account
You must have a personal Netlibrary account to "checkout" an ebook. This is absolutely free. See Netlibrary Accounts for instructions on how to create an account. Once you have created your account, you will be able to read NetLibrary ebooks anytime, anywhere.

Advanced features
Although BIBLOS lists 9,000 of the ebooks, you must go to the Netlibray site to have access to the full 30,000 volume collection. The Netlibrary interface provides many advanced features. Chief of these is that you can search for phrases in the ebooks, just as you would use Google to search for phrases in web pages.

Why only 9,000 out of 30,000
We acquired most of the ebooks as part of a package through TexShare, a tax supported consortium of academic and public libraries. The consortium selected the titles, including many that are not directly relevant to the seminary curriculum (e.g., fiction, juvenile literature, auto repair manuals, scientific monographs, etc.) Turpin Library staff selected 9,000 out of the 30,000 to add to BIBLOS. This increases visibility of ebooks relevant to the curriculum without cluttering the catalog with works less likely to be in demand. (Actually, staff used a computer program to select records based on call number ranges and a list of keywords; it is probable that the program added records for some works that are not relevant to the curriculum.)

Announcement posted 12/10/2004.

Digitization/Scanning/Ebook Project Begins Nov 2004

Nov, 2004. Logos, well known publisher of electronic/digital books and developer of Logos/Libronix bible study software, is now scanning public domain books from the Turpin Library collection. The scanning crew is using the very sophisticated robotic Kirtas scanner. Only books published before 1923 are being scanned because we can be certain the copyright has expired on these materials. Logos may scan as many as 15,000 volumes(?) at Turpin Library, then move to another library. Expect to see publication information at the Logos website in about a year.

Announcement posted 10/27/2004

WiFi!

A wireless network is now available in the library. See FAQ and access instructions and Troubleshooting web pages for details.

Announcement posted 8/19/2004; revised 10/19/2004

Collection milestone: 200,000!

Aug 16, 2004. Turpin Library received its 200,000th print volume! The honored book is by Isaac Watts: The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, and Apply'd to the Christian State and Worship. Published in 1719, this first edition is held by only 26 other libraries. This book was purchased with a gift from Brad Lapsley, long-time friend of the seminary. He also donated his personal copy of the sermons of C.I. Scofield, preached at the First Congregational Church, Dallas, in the early 1890s. This one-of-a-kind volume is the 200,001st book in our collection.

It took 61 years to reach 100,000 volumes (1985) and 19 more years to reach 200,000 volumes. Besides printed volumes, the library holds 76,579 items including microfilm, audio and video tapes, slides, maps, etc., for a total of 276,579 items.

Announcement posted 8/16/2004

New database: Christian Periodical Index

Turpin Library now provides access to Christian Periodical Index. CPI is a good guide to popular evangelical culture and religious life and thus supplements the more scholarly ATLA database.

Announcement posted 7/2004