Tips on Using ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials

This page offers some suggestions on how to use ATLA [stands for American Theological Library Association], which is the main source of information about perodical articles, essays in books, and book reviews, in theology and religious studies.

1. To open up ATLA, go to http://lib.tcu.edu/ , click on Databases > A > ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials.

2. If you want to do a keyword search, type your keyword or words (separated by 'and') in the search box. For example, I read a footnote referring to an article by Jon Levenson called "The Universal Horizon of Biblical Particularism," and I am wanting to read it. I type [levenson and particularism] in the search box and press Enter. The next screen gives me the information I'm looking for. When doing a keyword search, it is a good idea to type in the author's last name and one or two words from the title.

3. Subject searching. Type the subject term you are looking for into a search box, and change that box's label to "SU Subjects." If you would like to explore the subject heading system, click on the "Indexes" button, then change the "Browse an Index" field to Genre as Subject (biographies, bibliographies, obituaries, etc.), Geographic Name as Subject, Name as Subject (persons), Subjects All, or Topical Terms. For example, I want to find articles about Hildegard of Bingen. I click "Name as Subject" and type [hildegard] in the search box. The results show this:

I put a check mark in the appropriate box and then click the Search button.

If I'm looking for material on the doctrine of Atonement in Christian thought, I would click on "Subjects All" and type [atonement] in the search box. My results offer Atonement and Atonement (Judaism). I pick the first since I am concentrating on Christian thought, and this leads to roughly 1000 results, which is a very large number. It would be a good idea for me to narrow my search at this point, so I click the tab that says "Advanced Search." On the next screen I decide to narrow it down to recent work, so I type 2000 to the present year in the appropriate boxes. I want to limit my search to articles published in journals, so under "Publication Type" I select Article. I also choose "English" as a language limiter. These changes cut my results down to around 200. If I want to see what is available in full text, I click the "Full Text" box amd "Update Results." But keep in mind that there will likely be important articles on the topic you are interested in that are not available in full text. If I wanted to focus on discussions of St. Anselm's view of Atonement, I could add [anselm] to another search box.

4. Scripture searching in ATLA has its own quirks as well. If I were looking for materials on the Parable of the Good Samaritan, I would first figure out that it is found in Luke 10:29-37. Then I click the "Indexes" button at the top of the screen. I select the Bible Citation index, and type [luke 10:29] in the box. Notice that I didn't type [luke 10:29-37]. The reason for that will become clear in a moment. These are my results:

Luke 10:29/ Luke 10:29-37/ Luke 10:30-35/ Luke 10:30-37/ Luke 10:30ff/ etc.

Whether this passage begins with verse 29 or 30 is obviously ambiguous. All of these index entries look relevant to me, so I will check all of the boxes and see what I find. Notice than when you get to the records for articles on the parable, some of them will have a subject heading such as "Good Samaritan (Parable)." Click on that link also, in addition to doing the scripture reference search. In other words, there may be a subject heading relevant to the passage you are researching, so you need to do a "Subjects" search and a "Bible Citation" search.

Multipart books such as I and II Kings are listed in this version of ATLA as "Kings, 1st ..." So if I'm looking for II Kings chapter 17 I would type in [kings, 2nd 17].

5. The Publications button can also be useful at times. This allows you to limit your search to just one publication. For example, I may be wondering if the journal Theology Today has published anything about Sigmund Freud. I can type [ theology today ] into the Journal Title box and [ freud ] into a search box. You can also click on the "Publications" button and type in a title to discover whether or not it is indexed in ATLA.

6. Essays require special attention within ATLA, when you are looking for the basic bibliographic information. Typically, the ATLA record for an essay will not list the subtitle of the book in which the essay is found, and it will not list the editors of the book. To get that information, click on "View Source Record" in the Source field. You could also get the information about the subtitle and the editors from WorldCat or the TCU catalog.

7. If you have done a search and have a fairly long list of results that you are looking through, you should click the Add to Folder icon in the records that you find relevant. You will be collecting records in a folder, the contents of which can printed out, emailed to yourself, or exported to RefWorks.

8. Month abbreviations used in ATLA: Ja = Jan.; F = Feb.; Mr = March; Ap = April; My = May; Je = June; Jl = July; Ag = Aug.; S = Sept.; O = Oct.; N = Nov.; D = Dec.

Comments on this page should be directed to Charles Bellinger c.bellinger@tcu.edu