Posted on November 3, 2023
The Library is proud to introduce the new Brian K. Blount digital collection! The collection currently offers over 160 sermons and speeches written by Dr. Blount during his time as pastor of Carver Memorial Presbyterian Church and as Richard J. Dearborn Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Princeton Theological Seminary. Streaming video and audio recordings of some of Dr. Blount’s more significant sermons and speeches as President of Union Presbyterian Seminary are also available for the first time! This special collection documenting Dr. Blount’s work and scholarship will continue to grow as more materials are processed. The collection is accessible to the seminary community as well as the general public and can be found under the Special Collections menu on the Library website or by clicking here.
Posted on May 15, 2023
The Library is excited to announce the addition 0f 116 titles in eBook format from the acclaimed Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies series. Over the last 40 years this pioneering series has established an unrivaled reputation for cutting-edge international scholarship in Biblical Studies and has attracted leading authors and editors in the field. These titles are available with simultaneous access to an unlimited number of users and are available to current students, faculty, staff and alumni!
To browse titles in the Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies series in the Library’s collections click here.
If you have questions about this series, or any of our eBooks, please contact our Director of Public and Electronic Services, Ryan Douthat, at ryan.douthat@upsem.edu, or by phone at (804) 278-4217.
Posted on March 29, 2023
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.
Posted on March 21, 2023
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.
Posted on December 1, 2022
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:
Bento Box Tutorial Video
When you’re ready to try Bento Box out, click the link below:
Bento Box Search Display
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.
Posted on November 3, 2022
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.
Posted on June 23, 2022
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:
Apocryphal New Testament / J.K. Elliott, 2003
Encyclopedia of Dead Sea Scrolls / Lawrence H. Schiffman and James K. VanderKam, 2008
How to Read the Bible / Steven L. McKenzie, 2011
Oxford Bible Atlas, Fourth Edition / Adrian Curtis, 2022
Oxford Bible Commentary / John Barton and John Muddiman, 2022
Oxford Companion to the Bible / Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan, 2004
Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt / Donald B. Redford, 2005
Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in Near East / Eric M. Meyers, 2011
Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies / Judith M. Lieu and J.W. Rogerson, 2009
Oxford History of the Biblical World / Michael A. Coogan, 2022
Oxford Illustrated History of Bible / John Rogerson, 2022
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation / Steven L. McKenzie, 2014
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Archaeology / Daniel M. Master, 2013
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Ethics / Robert L. Brawley, 2015
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Gender Studies / Julia M. O’Brien, 2014
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Law / Brent A. Strawn, 2015
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and the Arts / Timothy Beal, 2016
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Theology / Samuel E. Balentine, 2015
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible / Michael D. Coogan, 2011
A Dictionary of Bible (2 ed.) / W.R.F. Browning, 2010 (COMING SOON)
Oxford Encyclopedias of the Bible / Michael Coogan, 2022 (COMING SOON)
Islam in Transition / John J. Donohue and John L. Esposito, 2022
Modernist Islam / Charles Kurzman, 2022
Handbook of Islam and Politics / John J. Esposito and Emad El-Din Shahin
Liberal Islam / Charles Kurzman, 2022
Makers of Contemporary Islam / John Esposito and John Voll, 2022
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World / John L. Esposito, 2009
The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art & Architecture / Jonathan M. Bloom and Sheila S. Blair, 2009
The Islamic World: Past and Present / John L. Esposito, 2022
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World: Digital Collection / John L. Esposito, 2022
The Oxford History of Islam / John L. Esposito, 2022
What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam / John L. Esposito, 2022
Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics / Emad El-Din Shahin, 2014
Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women / Natana J. DeLong-Bas, 2013
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Science, and Technology in Islam / Ibrahim Kalin, 2014
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.
Posted on June 16, 2022
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.
Posted on March 22, 2022
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.
ICC volumes can be accessed from the library’s online catalog, Digital Reference LibGuide and Alumni Research Portal.
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.
Posted on March 10, 2022
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.
