Library News and Events

Free: EndNote, Mendeley and Zotero

Many at DTS use Zotero, EndNote, Mendeley or other similar software to manage bibliographic citations, notes, and pdfs. Competition is driving some dramatic changes.

In early April 2013, wealthy science journal and book publisher Elsevier acquired Mendeley. A "basic" version of Mendeley is free; advanced version available for annual fee. In late April, EndNote has announced a "basic" version free, a $.99 ipad app, and advanced version for annual fee or for one time purchase.

Turpin Library will continue to offer instruction in use of Zotero (which has always been free), but over the next year we will be evaluating the free versions of competitors.

Announcement updated 4/24/2013

BIBLOS and databases not available Monday, 4/1/2013. Campus network not available.

Announcement updated 3/30/2013

Book Sale April 24—25, 2013, 9:00 am - 3:00 pm

• Hundreds of titles.
• Turpin Library front porch
• Priced to sell.
• Some titles sold only as whole sets.
• New titles added daily. No early-birds, holds or reservations.
• Cash or check. All proceeds will be used to buy library materials and pay for special unbudgeted library projects.
• Book dealers, please wait until the last day of the sale to shop. We want our students to have the first opportunity to select.

Is the library selling its collection? Not at all. Every year friends of the library donate books to the library. Many of these gifts duplicate what we already own. Some are outside the scope of our collection. So we sell them. On rare occasion the library also sells obsolete editions, worn copies, and other unneeded items from its collections.

Announcement updated 3/20/2013

New Database: L’Année philologique

L’Année philologique, formerly available at Turpin library only as a paper index, is now available online. APh indexes journal articles and books from 1928 to date concerning all aspects of classical studies from the second millennium BC to about 600 AD, including Greek and Latin literature and linguistics, early Christian texts and patristics, Greek and Roman history, art, archaeology, philosophy, religion, mythology, music, science, and scholarly subspecialties such as numismatics, papyrology and epigraphy. Abstracts of journal articles are in English, German, Spanish, French or Italian. Books entries often include tables of contents and book review information. APh does not provide full articles online, and Turpin Library owns only a fraction of the material cited in APh, but you can use interlibrary loan to obtain copies of articles provided you can wait a week or two for delivery. No doubt you are already familiar with the EBSCO search engine, but see APh search tips for suggestions specific to APh.

Announcement posted 2/11/2013.

Spring Training in Media Center, Jan 22—Feb 8, 2013

Training introduces Turabian Style Guidelines, Zotero Footnote Software, Bible Time Lines in Prezi, Bible Charts in Excel, and much more. See the complete media traning schedule.

Announcement updated 1/22/2013

Spring Library Orientation for New Students, Jan 15—16, 2013

• Learn how to search BIBLOS and ATLA.
• Tour the library and computer lab.
• Meet the staff and hear about services that will help you.

Orientation sessions are scheduled for the following times this semester. These sessions are especially valuable for MA students who do not take RS101. Please sign-up at the library circulation desk to reserve a place. Meet at the globe near the circulation desk for the orientation/training sessions.

Unable to make a session? See Orientation for Newbies. Contact library reference staff for personal help.

Announcement revised 12/19/2012

Library Statistics for Fiscal Year 2011-12

For the statistics junkies: how many books the library owns, how many were borrowed, how many online journal articles were downloaded, etc. 2011-12 library statistics.

Announcement posted 11/2012

Fall Training in Media Center, Sept 4—Oct 5, 2012

Training introduces Turabian Style Guidelines, Zotero Footnote Software, Accordance Bible Software, Digital Photography, Photoshop, iMovie, and much more. See the complete media traning schedule.

Announcement updated 8/28/2012

Fall Library Orientation for New Students, Aug 28—31, 2012

• Learn how to search BIBLOS and ATLA.
• Tour the library and computer lab.
• Meet the staff and hear about services that will help you.

Orientation sessions are scheduled for the following times this semester. These sessions are especially valuable for MA students who do not take RS101. Please sign-up at the library circulation desk to reserve a place. Meet at the globe near the circulation desk for the orientation/training sessions.

Unable to make a session? See Orientation for Newbies. Contact library reference staff for personal help.

Announcement revised 7/13/20121

New database: Catholic Periodical and Literature Index ONLINE

Catholic Periodical and Literature Index, formerly available only as a paper index, is now available online. CPLI covers Roman Catholic periodicals, essay collections, church documents, papal documents and electronic resources expressly addressing the practice and intellectual tradition of Roman Catholicism. 1981 to the present. Empahsis on popular English language publications, but expanding coverage of scholarly literature from 2012.

Announcement post 7/2/2012

Recarpeting Turpin, May 14—June 9, 2012; closed Saturday 5/26

This summer carpet will be replaced in all parts of the Turpin building (not Mosher). The process will begin May 14 on the third floor and take 3 to 4 weeks. The library will be open and usable all the time except Turpin and Mosher buildings will be closed Saturday 5/26. Each day a portion of the library will be inaccessible, but staff will be able to retrieve books for you at any time. You may smell carpet adhesive. Ever see a range of books stacks, fully loaded with books, rolled out of the way to make room for recarpeting?

Announcement updated 5/1/2012

A Notice For New Grads

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

Announcement revised 5/1/2012

Try WorldCat Local

Try WorldCat Local. This is not the same search engine and not the same data as OCLC FirstSearch WorldCat, although they are related. WorldCat Local searches for books and articles at the same time. And it uses a friendly Google-like search engine. Results are ranked by relevance (most relevant first) and by accessibility (items DTS owns listed first, then other items). While it is possible to use search operators, try a free-form Google-style search without explicit operators. For example, try something like
christology in Hebrews
or
community development in missions.

Announcement post 1/24/2012

New link: Classical Latin Texts

Classical Latin Texts contains most literary Latin texts up to A.D. 200. Enter from Home by agreeing to the terms of use. Find links at the upper left for Authors, Word Search, and Concordance. Click Authors to retrieve a list of classical authors. Choose an author for a list of works, and choose a work to read the text. Use Word Search to search for a word, phrase, or words related by specific operators. Click the gear icon for the list of operators or to set up filters for authors or works. The program does character string searches but allows for word breaks. Use Concordance to retrieve a line of text for each occurrence of your word or phrase with the citation on the left. Click a citation to go to the text. Classical Latin Texts is provided free of charge by the Packard Humanities Institute.

Announcement posted 9/27/2011

Convenient new searchbox supports searching multiple databases simultaneously

For quite some time now it has been possible to connect to any EBSCO database (e.g., ATLA) and then use "Choose Databases" to select multiple databases and search all of them simultaneously with a single search. But many students seemed to be unfamiliar with this feature. So we have added a searchbox on the library home page to advertise this feature and make it easy to use single search. See image below.

Single search is convenient but it is not the best way to execute precise searches. Part of Search Tips part one discusses the pros and cons of the generic Single Search kind of technology.

Announcement post 9/23/2011

New resource: Sage online journals

Sage Online. Over 140,000 full-text articles from 400 social science journals from 1999 to date. Covers a broad range of disciplines including Anthropology, Communication and Media Studies, Criminology, Education, Family Studies, Language and Linguistics, Management, Psychology and Counseling, Social Work, and Sociology.

Announcement post 9/23/2011

Ebooks now on EBSCO platform

NetLibrary ebooks have moved to the E-books on EBSCO platform. Now that theological publsihers are just beginning to license their titles to libraries for online ebook access, we expect this collection to grow rapidly.

Announcement posted 7/29/2011.

Download dissertations from semi-new database

We now have online access to thousands of PhD dissertations. Proquest dissertations, formerly Dissertation Abstracts International, cites nearly every US PhD/ThD dissertation accepted by an accredited school since 1861. We have had access to the citations and abstracts for years, but now we have access to pdf downloads for many but not all of the cited dissertations. It includes few PhD dissertations outside the US and few DMin dissertations. (Check RIM for the DMin dissertations). Subject headings are very broad (e.g., religion, biblical studies). Title and abstract and full-text of the documents are all searchable. If you are retrieving too many irrelevant citations, then just search the title field. If you are retrieving too few, search the full-text of the dissertations.

Announcement posted 7/27/2011.

New links to rabbinic sources

Online Responsa Project=Global Jewish Database includes Hebrew Bible and traditional Jewish commentaries, the Babylonian Talmud with Rashi's commentary and Tosafot, the Jerusalem Talmud, the Mishneh Torah of Maimonides, Shulchan Aruch with commentaries, Midrashim, and hundreds of books of responsa. This is an excellent source for rabbinic sources. 100% Hebrew language; no English. Even chapters and verse numbers of the bible are in Hebrew, not Arabic numerals. Login is not necessary in order to search (in Hebrew) and view a result list. But if you wish to view detailed context for search results, you must login as a subscriber or register as a guest.

You may also be interested in Rabbinic texts in Hebrew (Bible, Mishnah, Talmud, Tosefta, Mishneh Torah [Maimonides]) or Talmud, Soncino English translation or Ancient Jewish resources listed by national library of Israel.

Announcement posted 2/25/2011

Special Collections Relocated

Special Collections, including archives and the rare book collection, have relocated from the Mosher building to third floor Turipn.

Announcement posted 9/30/2010

Why do EndNote searches of BIBLOS results in an error message "Unicorn error 194"?

This happens when you specify a particular field to search, like author, title, or subject. As a simple work around, do not specify author, title, or subject. Just use the "Any Field" category.

Searches qualified by specific fields used to work, but something mysterious happen late in the summer of 2010 and we have not taken the time to discover the cause.

Announcement revised 8/26/2010

Collection of Course Syllabi Online

The library no longer maintains a collection of DTS course syllabi. Find course syllabi online.

Announcement posted 2/1/2010.

6,500 TREN edocs available via BIBLOS

Over 6500 TREN edocs, including many masters theses and regional ETS papers are cataloged in BIBLOS and available for download. The pdfs are encrypted. When you click a TREN link in BIBLOS, you will be promoted for your DTS ID and library PIN/password. You will then see an intermediate screen that provides the password to decrypt the file. There will also be a link to actually download the file.

Announcement posted 1/31/2010.

New subscription database: Iter

Iter indexes literature pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700), including journal articles, books, essays in books, and book reviews. Religious topics are prominent. As of 2009 there were about one million citations.

Announcement posted 11/30/2009

New link: École Biblique

École Biblique et Archéologique Française indexes books, journal articles, and essays, most of them dealing with biblical exegesis and archeology of the Near East, as well as the language and literature of people of the Ancient Near East. Strong in Palestine and Qumran studies. Uses a French or English interface with French subjects. Search the Library Catalogue or Title field in English and examine hit records to find French subject headings. The gospel of Matthew, for example, is written "Matthieu NT". The advanced search allows you to choose a book, chapter, article, periodical, map, etc. Search indexes for author, series, or subject. The default search operator is AND. Search also with NOT and OR, but not *. Add records to a cart and e-mail the cart.

Announcement posted 11/30/2009

EndNote Software Discontinued

EndNote is no longer provided as a download and is no longer supported by DTS. For alternatives, see Software for Creating Footnotes and Bibliographies.

Announcement posted 8/20/2009

Just for Kids

Looking for books, DVDs and CDs for young children? See our new children's collection! Local public libraries and book stores have a wealth of edifying (and sometimes not so edifying) secular material for kids of all ages. But public libraries typically have little religious material for kids. Our collection is meant to complement what you find at the public library and to show you how a church library can minister to children. Located behind the bound periodicals, the books and media are primarily for preschool through sixth grade children, and can be borrowed for three weeks. Works range from classic to contemporary, and we will gradually add new items.

Announcement posted 8/3/2009

New ATLA Heirarchical Scripture Reference Index

The ATLA database now supports a new Scripture Reference index to specific chapters and verses of the Bible. Just pick the Scripture menu item as illustrated above.

The system will respond with a list of books of the bible in canonical order. Select "Expand" to display chapter and then verse-specific choices.

The good news is that a verse-specific selection will match ranges that implicitly include that verse. For example, select Deut 6:5 and you will retrieve not only records that mention that exact verse, but also records that refer to Deut 6:1-7 and Deut 6:1-9. The indexing routine understand 6:5 is included in 6:1-7. Very nice.

This new index is based on the long standing Scripture Citation index and therefore has inherited the coverage limitations of the SC index. Before the end of summer we will update our ATLA documentation to reflect the new SR index and to indicate when using the old SC index is still preferable.

Announcement posted 6/17/2009

Unicode Fonts for Biblical Studies

Suppose you compose your paper at home, then bring the file to the library computer lab to print using our laser printers. But we don't have the fonts you used for Greek and Hebrew. What happens when you print? How can you prevent this problem? See our introduction to unicode fonts. And learn where to get free fonts.

Announcement posted 6/12/2009

Software for Creating Footnotes and Bibliographies

Frustrated by the tedium of creating properly formatted footnotes and bibliographies? Struggling to keep track of hundreds or even thousands of sources in your bibliography? See our guide to Software for Creating Footnotes and Bibliographies. Note our new Introduction to Zotero, which provides a very brief explanation of how to use Zotero, including how to import records from EndNote, how to build a database of citations, and how to create footnotes while composing your paper in MS Word. This will be especially valuable for students who have been using EndNote and wish to migrate to Zotero.

Announcement posted 6/8/2009

New link: Electronic Thesis Online Service (EThOS)

EThOS offers access to full-text doctoral theses from participating UK Higher Education Institutions right to your desktop and usually for free. It contains over 250,000 records at this time (3/2009), but most are non-theological, so don't get too excited. To see a thesis, create a login and check the agreement to honor the conditions of use. After that you may download the thesis to print and/or store it electronically for an unlimited time. If you want to read a thesis that EThOS has not digitized, you may request it from them. Staff from EThOS will inform you when the thesis is ready for download or will let you know if they are unable to make it available. Many UK institutions offer free download to the researcher. A small number of participating institutions do not offer Open Access, and the researcher may have to pay for digitization in that case. EThOS is operated by The British Library on a not-for-profit basis and charges are set only to cover costs.

Announcement posted 3/30/2009

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 link: 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 subscription 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 subscription 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 link: 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

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

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 subscription 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. 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, far more Greek text. Both provide links to LSJ lexicon entries. Use Perseus to save time. Use TLG to be thorough.

Announcement posted 2/5/2007

New subscription 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 link: 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 subscription 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

New links: 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 subscription 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 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 subscription 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.

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.

Advanced features
Although BIBLOS lists 9,000 of the ebooks, you must go to the Netlibray (now eBooks on EBSCO) 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; slightly revised 8/2011 when EBSCO bought out NetLibrary.

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

New subscription 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