Online Research Tools

[Sven]

I am looking into subscribing to one or more online research tools that give me access to journals, articles, etc. I'm doing this for educational purposes. I am attending seminary distance and do not have access to journals and other such publications that would be helpful for research and writing. Does anyone have any idea of which ones are good, which ones to avoid, and any other helpful/pertinent information? One I looked at was Highbeam research. So far it looks decent. If anyone could offer advice I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[Wayne]

If you are attending seminary long-distance, check first to see what services your library might make available to you. Your question seems to focus on access to articles and perhaps books, but there are other and more foundational resources that you also need.

WorldCat is an online database of the holdings of some 40,000 libraries worldwide. There is an academic version, and a public web version. It is essential for locating books you might need via interlibrary loan, and also quite useful for compiling bibliographies. Subsections like ArticleFirst and Dissertations let you search those categories.

The ATLA Database will focus specifically on theological and religious resources. This is another resources that your seminary library should be able to make available to you.

For pre-1923 materials, Google Books and www.archive.org are two sources that will yield an abundance of Presbyterian and continental Reformed works. With most, you can download entire works as pdf files. The CRC has a portal site with links to continental Reformed works on Google and elsewhere. I'm thinking about preparing something similar for Presbyterian works.

Some journals are online and free [Themelios, e.g.]; others are available on a subscription basis. For general seminary education, I would instead rely on your library privileges to request print copies of articles from journals on an as-needed basis. Most of your seminary education would be book based anyway, I think, or required articles may be included in the course syllabus.

Then of course there are all sorts of materials posted all over the web. Monergism.com is one vast warehouse. There are a lot of others. The PCA Historical Center has PCA position papers, several hundred articles and a sermon text index for published Puritan and Reformed sermons.

There's a lot out there and it just takes a bit of looking. Come back here to the PB if you prefer and I'm sure someone can always point you in the right direction.

 

[Sven]

Thanks Wayne, what do you think of the Gale group of databases, that have access to all kinds of articles from many different publications? Are they worth my time and money?
Also what about JStore? Is that a good place to subscribe to?

 

[Edward]

Have you looked to see what resources are available at your community library?

For example, our community library makes JStor available for use in the library; some other databases (but none that you've mentioned) are available either on site or on line via password access.

 

[Wayne]

Sven:

The Gale Group materials are excellent, as are Early English Books (Thompson?).

But if you are simply going to seminary as an M.Div. candidate, I don't think you need any of these services and it would be an unnecessary expense.

You haven't said which school you have signed up with for distance education [edit: ok, I see now from your About page], but I know there are tuition fees and other expenses. I have attended both Westminster (PA) and Covenant, and in neither case did I need the sort of materials that those services provide in order to fulfill course requirements.

Plus, if you are living in Grand Rapids, you have at hand some wonderful resources. There is nothing to prevent you from walking into the Calvin Seminary library and photocopying whatever articles you might need. If that school isn't esp. close, pick a college or university that is, and go find out what they have. It would be one thing if you were located out in the wilds of Alaska or North Dakota, but unless you just can't set foot out of the house, I'd say save your money.