Religion : Electronic Resources : Reference Works
Database Finder : The Library subscribes to many different types of electronic resources, including reference works. The Database Finder provides alphabetical and subject-based lists of these electronic resources, including descriptive information to help you select the most relevant resources. To browse titles in religion, go to Database Finder and click on the "subject browse" tab. Scroll through the subjects in the left window and select "religion"; then click "go" OR just follow this link. You should see an alphabetical list of databases for religious studies. For more information on any database, click on the corresponding more info button.
Library Catalog : As well as listing electronic reference works in the Database Finder, the University of Chicago Library also includes titles of electronic reference works in the library catalog. If available, the record includes links to online access.
Selected Reference Works in Religion Arranged by Subject. See Database Finder for additional titles and descriptions.
| Ancient Near East | Biblical Studies | Early Church History |
| Medieval Church History | Reformation and Early Protestantism | American Church History |
| World Religions | Miscellaneous |
- ETANA Electronic Tools and Ancient Near Eastern Archives : ETANA is a cooperative venture of a consortium of scholarly societies and universities to develop and maintain a comprehensive Internet site for the study of the ancient Near East (ANE). (free access)
- Ancient Near East and Mediterrean World : Texts available through the University of Chicago Library Electronic Full-Text Sources (EFTS) (free access)
- The Bible in English : Contains twenty versions of the Bible. In addition to the twelve complete Bibles, there are five New Testament works, two Gospel works and William Tyndale's New Testament, Pentateuch and Jonah translations.
U of C access
- Bibleserver.com : The Bible in 19 languages. (free access)
- Bibleworks 5.0 Software (CD-ROM) : for biblical exegesis and research; located in the 4th floor reading room near JRL461.
- Review of Biblical Literature : Book reviews published by the Society of Biblical Literature. (free access)
- The Revised Common Lectionary : maintained by Vanderbilt University. (free access)
Church History
- Acta Sanctorum : Contains the entire Acta Sanctorum, including all prefatory material, original texts, critical apparatus and indices. Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina reference numbers, essential references for scholars, are also included.
- CETEDOC Library of Christian Latin Texts (CLCLT) : Includes virtually all volumes published in the Corpus Christianorum, the omnia opera of major authors such as Augustine, Jerome,and Gregory the Great, as well as several works not yet available in the Corpus Christianorum. CD-ROM version located in the Classics Reading Room on the 4th floor, JRL 470.
- Christian Classics Ethereal Library : Includes writings of the Church Fathers and classic texts (by Augustine, Bunyan, Calvin, etc.) in Christianity. (free access)
- Early Christian Writings : Includes New Testament, Apocrypha, Gnostics, and Church Fathers. (free access)
- Patrologia Latina Database : An electronic version of the Latin portion of Jacques-Paul Migne's Patrologiae Cursus Completus, including notes, glosses, and indexes. Although originally published in the 19th century, it still represents the only scholarly edition of many works.
- Thesaurus Linguae Graecae : An increasingly comprehensive collection of all the surviving texts of Greek literature from the Homeric age to the middle ages.
- Digital Scriptorium : "Database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts, intended to unite scattered resources from many institutions into an international tool for teaching and scholarly research" (UC Berkeley). (free access)
- Europa Sacra Online : Provides "unrivalled coverage of medieval Church prelates, information on all 1300 medieval bishoprics, archdioceses and patriarchates under obedience to Rome, ... prosopographical information on 18,507 bishops, archbishops and patriarchs."
- International Medieval Bibliography : "The IMB database comprises records deriving from articles published in periodicals (journals) and in miscellany volumes (conference proceedings, collected essays, Festschriften and exhibition catalogues) published world-wide. All subjects relating to the Middle Ages are included, within the date range 300-1500 AD. Geographical areas covered are Europe, the Middle East and North Africa." (Select "Enter databases" for access.)
- ITER Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance : "Iter, meaning a journey or a path in Latin, is a not-for-profit research project with partners in Toronto (the headquarters), New York City, and Tempe. Iter was created for the advancement of learning in the study and teaching of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700) through the development of online resources."
- The Labyrinth : Resources for Medieval Studies (Georgetown University) (free access)
- LexMa: Lexicon des Mittelalters Online : Medieval studies encylopedia covering Europe and parts of the Middle East and North Africa. Encyclopedia for medieval studies "covers the period from 300 to 1500 AD/CE for the whole of Europe and parts of the Middle East and North Africa" including 36,700 signed articles by 3000 authors. (Select "Enter databases" for access.)
- Ut per litteras apostolicas : Electronic version of the series of papal registers and letters of the 13th and 14th centuries preserved in the Vatican Secret Archives in Rome. (Select "Enter databases" for access.)
Reformation and Early Protestantism
- Digital Library of Classic Protestant Texts : Offers an extensive range of seminal works from the Reformation and post-Reformation eras. Includes theological writings, biblical commentaries, confessional documents, and polemical treatises written by more than 300 Protestant authors.
- Early English Books Online (EEBO) : Titles from Pollard & Redgrave (1475-1640), Wing (1641-1700), Thomason Tracts (1640-1661) and Early English Books Tract Supplement. Subjects include literature, history, philosophy, linguistics, theology, music, art, education, mathematics, and science.
- Eighteen Century Collections Online (ECCO) : Comprehensive digital edition of the eighteenth century, a microfilm collection of 150,000 English-language titles and editions published between 1701 and 1800. Includes books and broadsides, Bibles, tract books and sermons to printed ephemera by well-known and lesser-known eighteenth-century authors.
- Historical Abstracts : Fundamental indexing and abstracting tool for modern history. Covers world history since 1450 (except United States and Canada).
- Luthers Werke : Includes his Bible translations and treatises, as well as sermons, letters, Tischreden, poems and hymns. Searches may be limited to a particular work or genre, or expanded to include the entire database.
- Victorian Database Online : Over 100,000 records listing books, articles, and dissertation abstracts published from 1945 to 2002 on every field of nineteenth-century British studies.
- The American Religion Data Archive : "[A] project funded by the Lilly Endowment, Inc. ... [which] acts to preserve quantitative data on American religion, to improve access to this data, to increase the use of the data, and to allow comparisons across data files. The ARDA collection includes data on churches and church membership, religious professionals, and religious groups (individuals, congregations and denominations). (free access)
- Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans Digital Editions (1639-1800) : a resource for research on 17th and 18th century American life, which includes devotional literature, prayer books, prayers, psalters, and sermons.
- America: History and Life : Historical coverage of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.
- American Periodicals Series Online : "Over 1,100 periodicals that first began publishing between 1740-1900, including special interest and general magazines, and many other historically-significant periodicals."
- Digital Quaker Collection : "DQC is a digital library containing full text and page images of over 500 individual Quaker works from the 17th and 18th centuries. The proprietary software developed for Earlham School of Religion provides multiple search functions and an interface for viewing pages" (free access)
- Salem Witch Trials : Documentary Archive and Transcription Project (University of Virginia) (free access)
- Witchcraft Collection : (Cornell University Library) (free access)
Encyclopaedia of Islam : Provides detailed information and articles on Islam, as well as the people and cultures of the Middle East and other Islamic nations. Windows users - Click on "Brill fonts PC" in the top frame to download and install the required fonts.
Compact Memory : Internetarchiv jüdischer Periodika : Digitized page images of German-language Jewish newspaper and journals from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, searchable by publication, author, title, subject, and date. Holdings being added with expected completion in 2006 with 305,000 pages.
- Digital Library & Museum of Buddhist Studies (free access)
- Digital South Asia Library : Provides digital materials for reference and research on South Asia. Includes Reference Sources, Images, Maps, Statistics, Indexes, Books, Journals, Bibliographies, and Union Lists (University of Chicago). (free access)
- Daoist Studies : An electronic publishing community that aims to further Daoist Studies; includes bibliography project, containing over 1700 entries. The site was developed by James Miller, Livia Kohn, and Louis Komjathy at Boston University in April, 2000, and is funded by a Boston University research grant. (free access)
- Encyclopedia Mythica : "Internet encyclopedia of mythology, folklore, and religion. Here you will find everything from A-gskw to Zveda Vechanyaya, with plenty in between." (free access)
- Jewish Encyclopedia : "This website contains the complete contents of the 12-volume Jewish Encyclopedia, which was originally published between 1901-1906. The Jewish Encyclopedia, which recently became part of the public domain, contains over 15,000 articles and illustrations." (free access)
- Bibliotheca Religiosa IntraText (Intratext Digital Library) : Contains religious texts of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. (free access)
- Internet Sacred Texts Archive : This site is a freely available archive of electronic texts about religion, mythology, legends and folklore, and occult and esoteric topics. Texts are presented in English translation and, in some cases, in the original language. (free access)
- Palitext: CD-ROM Database of the Entire Buddhist Pali Canon (located on the fifth floor, JRL 504)
- Responsa Project: Database for Jewish Studies. Bar llan’s Judaic Library. Database of the Bible Old Testament and rabbinical literature with commentaries. Covers over 400 volumes Bible-Talmud-commentaries and Halachic Responsa (located in 4th floor reading room near JRL461)
- Saul and Evelyn Henkind Talmud Text Databank (CD-ROM) : A searchable database of over 460 different primary text sources of the Babylonian Talmud (located in 4th floor reading room near JRL461)
- ArchiveGrid : Bibliographic records and digital finding aids for archival and manuscript collections at RLG libraries and other research libraries worldwide.
- ATLA Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative : "The Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative of the American Theological Library Association and Association of Theological Schools is a repository of digital resources contributed by member libraries. The creation of CDRI has been made possible by a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. Phase One of the Initiative provided digital images of woodcuts, photographs, slides, papyri, coins, maps, and manuscripts. Phase Two added lithographs, sermons, shape-note tune books, manuscripts, and images of Christian art and iconography. Phase Three materials added in April 2005 include additional images, manuscripts, and texts." Phase four is planned for 2006. (free access)
- EFTS (Electronic Full-Text Sources) | Religious Texts : A list of full-text resources; sponsored by the University of Chicago Library and the ARTFL Project
- Index of Christian Art : Records works of art (manuscripts, metalwork, sculpture, painting, glass, etc.) from early apostolic times to A.D. 1400 with emphasis on art of the western world. Includes bibliography, references to reproductions, and some links to images (Princeton University).
- Online Books Page (University of Pennsylvania) : An assortment of text-full books arranged in call number order. (free access)
- Oxford Reference Online : Provides access to over 120 language and subject dictionaries, reference works, and biographical directories in a variety of disciplines published by OUP that can be searched individually or in one cross-searchable database.
- Oxford Scholarship Online : Provides full-text access to selected books in philosophy, religion, economics and finance, and political science published by Oxford University Press. Currently includes over 700 titles, and 200 titles will be added annually.