Starting Research in Theology and Religious Studies

When you start your literature search for any research project, thesis or dissertation, there are certain categories of material you should include in your search. This short guide explains what they are and how to find them in and from the University of Glasgow Library. Start with the library homepage - this is the gateway to resources. The Subject Pages for Theology and Religious Studies also provide a good starting point.

Books

  • In the University of Glasgow Library: Books which are available in the library can be found via the library catalogue
  • Other libraries: The other libraries catalogues pages enables you to search the catalogues of other libraries, individually from the list or globally. There are links to UK catalogues - British Library or COPAC are useful – and the European Library and the Library of Congress. These can be useful to help you identify resources which the library does not stock but which can be obtained from another library. See Request item from another library pages for further details on how to do this. 
  • Oxford Scholarship Online – Religion: Fully searchable, full text collection of over 1000 books from OUP in the subject area of religion. Topics include: Buddhism; Church History; Early Christian Studies; Hinduism; Islam; Judaism; Philosophy of Religion; Religion and Literature; Religion and Society; Sikhism; World Religions. Access via the library catalogue - direct access on campus; GUID off campus. Excellent resource.

If there is a particular item which we do not have in the library and which you think would be useful for stock, please inform the Subject Librarian, Honor.Hania@glasgow.ac.uk

Journal Articles

Searching within the journal

It is possible to search within a journal if it is in electronic format. This is useful you are likely to be working in a specific area covered very well by a single journal or group of journals. To find out what journals the library has on a particular topic, use the Search For tab on the library home page, choose journals and search under keyword. The icon will tell you if the journal is in electronic format.

Searching a journal publisher's website

A number of e-journal publishers/suppliers allow the searching of their websites for articles on particular topics, and enable a direct link to the retrieved article(s) if the university library is a subscriber to the journal. This is a quick and easy way to retrieve journal articles and may well be sufficient for your needs. Useful sites in Theology and Religious Studies  are:

Databases

Databases are electronic indexes to the literature of a subject, and provide access to a vast amount of material, mainly, but not exclusively, journal articles.  A list of databases useful for TRS is available and the the following may be good starting points:

  • Article1st – good general database, useful for TRS
  • British Humanities Index – a major database in the broad area of arts and humanities.
  • ATLA Religion Database – major database in TRS from the American Theological Library Association. Recommended.
  • JSTOR - searchable archive of around a thousand leading academic journals including humanities in digital facsimile. Full text
  • Periodicals Archive Online - provides access to the digitised back issues of almost 600 journals within the arts, humanities and social sciences  to 2000.
  • Project Muse - full text of journal articleson a varity of topics within humanities, and good content in TRS. Nicely presented database
  • Web of Science - large, general database with some good content in TRS via the Arts and Humanities Citation Index.  Citation searching is possible in this database. This allows you to see which other records in the database have cited the item in which you are interested, thus allowing you to broaden your list of references

The American Theological Libary Association provides a free database Research in Ministry which might be useful.

Online help is generally available for each database. In addition, general instructions and information for using databases are available on our Information Skills webpages.

To  access articles

Sometimes full text is available directly by clicking on the link on your results list. If it is not, you can find out if the library has a subscription to the journal you want by checking the catalogue. Search under the title of the journal. Please make sure you also check the holdings, that is, the dates for which the library has copies of the journal. The journal may be in printed or in electronic format, or both.

If you are accessing an electronic copy of a journal, you may need to provide a password. This will be your GUID. Look for Institutional Log in/ Log in via your institution/Shibboleth and follow the instructions. If you are trying to access the journal from off campus, it is absolutely essential that you access via the library catalogue.

If the library does not take the journal in which your article(s) appear you will need to obtain the article through our requesting service 

Dissertations and Theses

You may want to know if a dissertation or thesis has already been written on, or related to, your topic. To find out, check the following catalogues and indexes to theses:

ETHOS – electronic access to theses produced in the UK. Searchable site.
Theses in University of Glasgow Library
Index to Theses of Great Britain and Ireland - covers theses accepted from 1970 onwards
Proquest Dissertations and Theses - good source for information on dissertations and theses. Useful, but has a North American bias.
WordCat Dissertations and Theses - database of all dissertations and theses available in OCLC member libraries

If you identify a thesis which you think may be useful for you, and if it is not in the university library, follow these instructions for obtaining it.

Further information on theses, including links to national theses repositories

Internet

The Internet contains very useful material, but you should only use those sites which you consider to be reliable and trustworthy in the information they provide.

Tutorials

Web portals

 

Primary Sources

Primary sources are defined in various ways, but a good working definition is "firsthand information – either direct or proximate – relevant to a topic or question" (Studstill & Cabrera, 2010, p. 89). Typical examples would include scriptures, sermons, artifacts, letters, diaries etc. Primary sources provide valuable data for research, but as with all subjects, primary sources in Theology and Religious Studies reflect personal perspectives or views and must be critically interpreted.

The following links may aid you in your use of primary source material.

A Moodle on Primary Sources from a historical perspective is available.

In the Library

The Library provides access to a number of primary sources useful in Theology and Religious Studies. Some of these are available in electronic format; others are print only. Those titles which are have low usage are housed in the Library Research Annexe and there is also material in the Special Collections Department. All items are identifiable through the library catalogue. there is also some material, particularly relating to Trinity College, in the Unversity Archives.

Some specialised library texts/databases:

Other Libraries

  • Mundus Database - details of overseas misionary material held in libraries in the United Kingdom. Descriptions, availabilty and access.This website has a very good links page giving details of other primary source/archival collections on this topic.
  • Archives Hub - access to information about collections of primary source material held throughout the UK. Searchable by keyword.

Internet

There is also a great deal of freeely available available material on the internet. In addition to content in the sites mentioned above, the following may be useful:

Further Information

If you have difficulty in using the resources above, or want further help in researching a particular topic, please contact: Subject Librarian for Theology and Religious Studies: Honor Hania. Tel: 0141 330 6714; E-mail: Honor.Hania@glasgow.ac.uk