The Library is excited to announce the addition of the complete Oxford Handbooks Online – Religion series. Oxford Handbooks Online in Religion brings together the world’s leading scholars to write review essays that evaluate the current thinking on a field or topic, and make an original argument about the future direction of the debate. Monthly updates introduce articles in advance of print publication and beyond the book, online-only content ensures the most current, authoritative coverage anywhere. The series includes over 130 digital volumes which are available to an unlimited number of simultaneous users. Oxford Handbooks Online – Religion titles are accessible through the library’s online catalog and are available to current students, faculty and staff from locations off-campus using their barcode and PIN.
To browse this and other Oxford digital reference titles in the Library’s collections click here.
If you have questions about this collection, or any of our eBook collections, please contact our Director of Public and Electronic Services, Ryan Douthat, at ryan.douthat@upsem.edu, or by phone at (804) 278-4217.
Oxford Bibliographies Online – Biblical Studies is an invaluable digital resource for navigating modern academic study of the Bible by helping its users find authoritative and scholarly research covering a wide variety of Biblical subjects. It’s contributors offer expertise ranging from Egyptology and Assyriology to sociological and feminist studies.
Oxford Bibliographies Online – Biblical Studies, is available to current students, faculty, staff and alumni of BTSR, PSCE and UPSem. Access is available from the Online Databases A to Z list, the library’s online catalog and the Alumni Research Portal.
As with all of the Library’s electronic resources, you will need your library account barcode and PIN in order to access this resource from off-campus locations.
The Library is excited to introduce a new search display in our online catalog called Bento Box, which will launch in January 2023. This new display enables us to bring together and highlight several important library resources in one search.
Check out our Bento Box tutorial video which introduces you to the new interface and its features:
We would love to know what you think of the Bento Box search experience! You can contact the Library’s Director of Public and Electronic Services, Ryan Douthat, at (804) 278-4217 or ryan.douthat@upsem.edu.
The Union Presbyterian Seminary Library is pleased to announce the addition of over 225,000 unlimited, multi-user access eBooks in the ProQuest Academic Complete eBook subscription collection. This multi-disciplinary collection covers a wide range of subject areas including Social Science, History, Education, Environmental Studies, Psychology and many more and includes all titles found in the ProQuest Religion and Philosophy subscription collection. Over 180 publishers have contributed to the collection and it includes more than 16,000 non-English titles.
Discovery & Access
In addition to being discoverable through a normal catalog search, titles in ProQuest Academic Complete can be searched in their own unique way.
From the search bar on the library website’s homepage, select ProQuest Academic Complete from the Everything drop-down menu:
Or, from the search bar on the library catalog homepage, select ProQuest Academic Complete from the Everything drop-down menu:
Titles in the ProQuest Academic Complete eBook subscription are accessible off-campus to current students, faculty and staff. As with all of the Library’s electronic resources, you will need your library account barcode and PIN in order to access them from off-campus locations.
If you have questions about this collection, or any of our eBook subscriptions, please contact our Director of Public and Electronic Services, Ryan Douthat, at ryan.douthat@upsem.edu, or by phone at (804) 278-4217.
As previously announced Oxford University Press has retired its Oxford Biblical Studies Online (OBSO) and Oxford Islamic Studies Online (OISO) databases.
However, the library is pleased to offer the following online biblical and Islamic reference resources (previously available in OBSO and OISO) on the Oxford Reference, Oxford Handbooks Online, Oxford Scholarship Online, and What Everyone Needs to Know platforms:
The Oxford Dictionary of Islam / John L. Esposito, 2003 (COMING SOON)
New access links to these online Oxford biblical and Islamic reference resources are now available to current students, faculty, staff and alumni on the library’s online databases page, alumni research portal, research guides and the online catalog.
If you are a student, faculty or staff member, or Union, PSCE or BTSR alum, and you need to obtain or update your Library account, please contact our Circulation Supervisor, Lisa Janes. If you already have a valid barcode and PIN but you are having trouble using your login, please contact our Director of Public and Electronic Services, Ryan Douthat. If you are not familiar with Oxford Biblical reference resources and have questions about them, or you need other research assistance, please contact our Reference Librarian, Robin McCall, or our Charlotte Librarian, David Mayo.
We regret to announce that Oxford University Press has decided to retire the Oxford Biblical Studies Online (OBSO) and Oxford Islamic Studies Online (OISO) databases on Tuesday, June 21, 2022.
Online reference sources that the Library purchased on these platforms will still be available to Library users, however, on the Oxford Reference, Oxford Handbooks Online, Oxford Scholarship Online, and What Everyone Needs to Know platforms.
New links to former OBSO and OISO resources will be provided on the library’s Online Databases page, its Alumni Research Portal, its Research Guides, and its online Catalog in the near future to ensure as seamless a transition as possible.
As part of the Hal Todd Library Without Walls initiative, the UPSem Library is pleased to announce the addition of the International Critical Commentary series online for current students, faculty, staff and alumni! For over 100 years, the International Critical Commentary series has held a special place among works on the Bible. It has brought together all the relevant aids to exegesis – linguistic and textual no less than archaeological, historical, literary and theological – with an outstanding level of comprehension and quality of scholarship. Contributors to the series are known for their scholarly distinction rather than adherence to any one school of thought. This collection is a curated selection of 59 titles from throughout the series’ history, including both long-unavailable titles and newly-published research.
Each title of the International Critical Commentary series is available with unlimited concurrent access for all current UPSem students, faculty, staff and alumni with DRM-free reading, and download/print at the chapter-level for each title.
If you have questions about this series or any of the library’s other electronic resources please contact our Director of Public and Electronic Services, Ryan Douthat, at ryan.douthat@upsem.edu or phone, (804) 278-4217.
As part of the Hal Todd Library Without Walls initiative, the UPSem Library is pleased to announce the addition of three new eBook subscriptions to its electronic resource collection, EBSCO Diversity & Ethnic Studies, EBSCO Religion and ProQuest Religion & Philosophy. These aggregated scholarly eBook subscriptions include unlimited simultaneous access to nearly 35,000 titles covering a broad range of topics from African American Studies, Asian Studies, Disability Studies, Hispanic & Latin American Studies and LGBTQ+ Studies to Biblical Studies, Christianity, Islam, Judaism and more. Titles from each of these collections range from introductory texts to more complex and detailed works.
We are also pleased to announce the addition of nearly 30,000 individual digital titles from the Karl Barth Digital Library and the American Theological Library Association Historical Monographs, Series 1 and 2, accessible for the first time in the library’s catalog.
Discovery & Access
In addition to being discoverable in a normal catalog search these eBook subscriptions can be searched for in their own unique way.
From the search bar on the library catalog homepage select the Everything drop-down menu:
From the Everything drop-down menu select the individual eBook subscription you would like to search.
Or alternatively you can select eBook Subscriptions from the same drop-down menu and search them all collectively.
These eBook subscriptions are accessible off-campus to current students, faculty and staff. As with all library electronic resources you will need your library account barcode and PIN in order to access them.
If you have questions about any of these eBook subscriptions please contact our Director of Public and Electronic Services, Ryan Douthat, at ryan.douthat@upsem.edu or phone, (804) 278-4217.
The ways in which the news media depicted racial differences over time has played a significant role in shaping both American history and the African American experience. Black Life in America’s comprehensive database including over 19,000 news sources updated daily covers every issue involved in America’s ongoing conversation on race. This contemporary third series provides primary source coverage of historic changes such as Barack Obama’s election and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. Current students, faculty and staff can access Black Life in America here and on the library’s Online Databases page.
The Black Life in America database features include a basic and advanced search as well as Suggested Searches curated by era topic, person, or event.
The left side of the search results page in this database offers a number of search sort options which enable the user to narrow their search by date, source type, name, location and language. Another unique feature is the Preview button which gives the reader a closer look at the text of the article before opening it.
Also at the top of each search results page you will find important citation, download, print and save tools:
For more information on Black Life in America see the following video:
On Saturday, June 26, 2021, Ebook Central will be offline and all the library’s Ebook Central holdings will be unavailable to users for approximately eight hours from 10:00am to 6:00pm for a scheduled maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience.
As a reminder users can download individual chapters of Ebook Central eBooks by clicking the ‘Download PDF’ link next to the pertinent chapter in the ‘Table of Contents’ section. Chapters can then be saved and viewed using any standard PDF software such as Adobe and they do not expire.
