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Article searching

Click here for a list of indexing tools most frequently used at the Divinity Library. These resources are used for finding journal articles, current news, book reviews, chapters in multi-author books, and other materials not found in Orbis.

There are also many online journals that can be searched directly (see Selected Journals).

NB: Sometimes you can get the full text of an article online, but often you are only given a citation for an article (information about where it appeared). If you need to locate a paper copy of the article, search in Orbis, the online catalog, to find if Yale holds the journal in which the cited article appears. If there is an "SFX" button like this:, click on it to facilitate further searching.

If Yale does not hold the journal you need, you can use Interlibrary loan to obtain a copy of the article. Click on "Interlibrary Loan" from the Divinity Library homepage and choose the "Photocopy (article)" request form.

See the Research Tools section of the Yale University Library web site for a full listing of available tools. Note that many of these tools are restricted to use by Yale affiliates. For OFF-CAMPUS access by Yale affiliates, consult the instructions at for using the Proxy Server.

More information about six frequently used indexing tools:

  • ATLA Religion Database
  • Religious and Theological Abstracts
  • Academic Search
  • WilsonWeb
  • Arts and Humanities Citation Index
  • Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe

What do they index?
What are the advantages/disadvantages of each?

What do these tools index?

The ATLA Religion Database indexes more than 600 periodicals, primarily specifically in the field of religion, but also including titles like Archaeology, Asian Folklore Studies, and The Sixteenth Century Journal. Chapters in books and book reviews are also indexed. A team of indexers provides extensive subject headings.
 
Religious and Theological Abstracts currently abstracts more than 400 journals, with summaries produced by a team of scholars. Coverage includes journals relating to Christianity, Judaism, and other world religions. English language abstracts are provided for articles in French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Afrikaans, Hebrew, Italian, and Spanish.
 
Academic Search (EBSCOhost) provides access to journal articles in most academic areas of study including science, economics, communications, computer sciences, engineering, language and linguistics, arts and literature, medical sciences and women's studies. It includes full-text coverage of nearly 1,200 journals from 1990 to the present and provides abstracts and indexing for nearly 3,000 journals from 1984 to the present. It also includes The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Christian Science Monitor. For more information see the List of Journals indexed by Academic Search.
 
WilsonWeb is a collection of periodical indexing databases covering the Arts, Humanities, Sciences, and Social Sciences. You can search the databases separately, or search across multiple databases simultaneously. WilsonWeb provides full text of articles from selected publications.
 
The Arts and Humanities Citation Index is an international interdisciplinary index to the literature of the arts and humanities, indexing the contents of about 6,100 journals, covering about 1,000 fully and about 5,100 selectively. Those selectively covered are titles in the sciences and social sciences indexed by Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index, from which articles of possible interest in the arts and humanities are drawn.
 
Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe is a WWW interface to the powerful Lexis-Nexis news and information service that provides access to newspapers, magazines, transcripts, business and legal information and much more. The NEXIS service is unmatched in depth and breadth of information, offering more than 13,800 sources of news and business information. In fact, 120,000 new articles are added each day from worldwide newspapers, magazines, news wires and trade journals. Sources include the New York Times, CNN, The Economist, AP and NPR.

What are the advantages/disadvantages of each?

ATLA Religion Database

Advantages:
  1. Widest coverage of journals related to religion.
  2. Also includes references to chapters in books and book reviews.
  3. Subject descriptors
  4. Available on the web
Disadvantages:
  1. Only about 15% full text at this time
  2. Few abstracts - you have to determine the relevance of the record from its title and subject headings.
  3. Updated twice per year, so won't contain up-to-the minute documentation.

Religious and Theological Abstracts

Advantages:
  1. Abstracts can sometimes save you the time of looking up the articles.
  2. Abstracts provide English language summaries of articles in other languages.
Disadvantages:
  1. Much more narrow coverage than ATLA - i.e, fewer periodicals, no chapters in books.
  2. No subject searching possible, only keyword, so it is often more difficult to devise efficient search strategies.
  3. Won't contain up-to-the minute documentation.
  4. No full text

 

Academic Search (EBSCOhost)

Advantages:
  1. Covers a broad scope - the humanities and social science articles - so may be very useful for certain topics.
  2. Contains full text of many articles.
  3. It is updated frequently - good for tracking very recent materials. Some journals indexed by ATLA Religion Database are also indexed by Academic Search - and more quickly.

Disadvantages
  1. Does not index many of the scholarly religious periodicals that are covered by ATLA Religion Database and R&TA.
  2. Has less historical coverage than WilsonWeb
  3. Does not index chapters in books, as ATLA Religion Database does.

 

Wilson Web

Advantages:
  1. Has more historical coverage than Academic Search.
  2. Contains full text of many articles.
  3. Because it is web-based, it is updated frequently - good for tracking very recent materials.
 
Disadvantages:
  1. Does not index many of the scholarly religious periodicals that are covered by ATLA Religion Database and R&TA.
  2. Does not index chapters in books, as ATLA Religion Database does.

Arts and Humanities Citation Index

Advantages:
  1. Covers a broad scope - the humanities and selected science and social science articles - so may be very useful for certain topics.
  2. As a "citation index" AHCI allows you to trace what articles are cited by a particular article and where the article in question has been cited elsewhere. This can be useful for developing a bibliography or tracing the development of an issue.
  3. Because it is web-based, it is updated weekly - good for tracking very recent materials.
  4. Includes film, television, radio, and theater reviews.
Disadvantages:
  1. Does not index many of the scholarly religious periodicals that are covered by ATLA Religion Database and R&TA.
  2. Does not index chapters in books, as ATLA Religion Database does.
  3. No subject indexing - searching is by keyword in the article title, abstract, or keywords supplied by AHCI.

Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe

Advantages:
  1. Provides full text of articles, not just abstract or reference.
  2. Updated daily - 120,000 new articles are added each day
  3. Most comprehensive full-text news resource available.
Disadvantages:
  1. Not the best place to look for scholarly articles - coverage is more oriented to newspapers and news magazines.
  2. Full text is not searched -- searches identify a "topic" or word that appears in the headline or lead paragraph.
     
Last Updated 11/30/07

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