I Want You to Know...

ATLASerials and CPLI do not have much overlap. American Theological Library Association and Catholic Library Association (the people that create CPLI) have an agreement that they will not index the same journals, so only the few that were duplicated in the past are in both. ATLASerials indexes only a handful of Catholic journals, so if you are trying to do a comprehensive search or one that provides a Catholic viewpoint, you should search both databases. You can search both databases at the same time! Ask me how!

...how you can ask me about ATLA Serials and CPLI (or any other reference or research question you have). Email, phone, make an appointment, stop by on a whim, leave a comment on this blog, and possibly by end of summer, IM.

Electronic Reference Works

The big improvement to library resources this week is the access to lots of major reference works through the library webpage. Go to Find Books and look at the lists under Gale Virtual Reference Library, Oxford Digital Reference Shelf and Oxford Reference Online Premium. Now you have online access to the New Catholic Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia of Religion, Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, Encyclopedia of Bioethics, Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture and twelve other major Gale encyclopedias. You can click on any reference book listed and do a search of all the works at once. If you want to only search in that particular work, make sure you click the box, "within this publication." Note that there are basic search and advanced search capabilities.

Oxford Reference Online Premium puts an entire reference collection at your desk. Browse the subject areas to see what all is available. A few of the religion titles included are Oxford Dictionary of the Popes, Oxford Dictionary of Saints, A Dictionary of Buddhism. You can search the entire database at once, or just a single title. The Oxford Digital Reference Shelf is a separate component of more major reference works published by Oxford, but they are also searchable in the Oxford Reference Online Premium.

New Databases 6/15/08

OriginsOnline--go to Find Articles and click on link for OriginsOnline. This database includes all documentation going back to Volume 1 from Origins. There are some search hints on the webpage, but let me know if you need help.

Bibliography of the History of Art-- Go to Find Articles and click on link for FirstSearch databases. The most comprehensive art bibliography available worldwide, covering European and American visual arts from late antiquity to the present. Encompasses the fine arts as well as decorative and applied arts. Includes international material selected from periodicals since 1973. Indexes and abstracts journal articles, art-related books, conference proceedings and dissertations, exhibition and dealers' catalogs.

JSTOR--go to Find Articles and click on link for JSTOR. Soon you should be able to search your favorite databases, like ATLAS or CPLI and have the articles you find link directly to JSTOR full text.

Iter: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance--go to Find Articles and click on link for Iter. Iter's bibliography includes literature pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700). Citations for books, journal material (articles, reviews, review articles, bibliographies, catalogues, abstracts and discographies) are included, as are citations for dissertation abstracts, and essays in books (including entries in conference proceedings, festschriften, encyclopedias and exhibition catalogues). In addition, there are several other smaller databases associated with Iter that you can access. They are the ones that say "Connect to:"

RAMBI; The Index of Articles on Jewish Studies--click on link for RAMBI. This is a freely available database from The Jewish National and University Library. Once you have entered RAMBI, use the link called "RAMBI Web" to start searching.

Kennedy Institute of Ethics Databases--There are several databases here--if you've used the print Bibliography of Bioethics, try this. It's a more complete version than the print!

New Databases 6/6/08

Our website is a work in progress, but please take a look at these new resources. On the ‘Find Books’ page, you may now access the full-text of the OED. On the ‘Find Articles’ page, there is now a link to IxTheo. IxTheo is a database indexing journals and festschriften in theology and religious studies from the entire world. Although produced in Germany, over 3/4ths of the works indexed are from countries other than Germany. The website also includes a “current contents service” and a monthly list of new monographs in religious studies and theology.

We now provide access to the Saskia Art Image Collection. You can find this under ‘Find Online Images.’ This database has over 30,000 digital images of paintings, sculpture and architecture, including images from many important collections. A quick search of ‘saints’ turns up 629 images. On the ‘Find Online Images’ page you will also find a link for the ATLA Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative. This is a database of digital images of woodcuts, photographs, slides, papyri, coins, maps, postcards, manuscripts, lithographs, sermons, shape-note tune books, and various forms of Christian art, architecture, and iconography.