We’ve just launched a new page on the Library website to make locating our online databases even easier! You’ll still find the link to the Online Databases in the same place, under the “Library Resources” menu heading on the homepage. The page will open in a new tab.

The new page is an A-Z list of all the databases to which the Library has access. If you know the name of the database you want to use, you can either click on the first letter of its name at the top of the page or just scroll down the alphabetical list to find it. Each database includes a short description of what you’ll find inside it. Clicking on the blue title of the database will cause the database to open in a new link. Remember that, if you’re off campus, you’ll need your bar code number and password in order to use the databases.

You can also use the menu bar at the top of the new page to search the databases by subject heading and by keyword. (Heads up: the keyword search at the top right of the page searches the database names and descriptions, not the databases themselves. In order to search the databases’ contents, you have to click on the database and search inside it.) The dropdown subject menu offers a list of topics to choose from; it’s a good way to narrow down the list of databases to ones that are most likely to be relevant to your research. You’ll find some specificity in the more classically seminary-focused options: New Testament, Hebrew Bible, Christian education, church history, theology, preaching and worship, and many other areas of theological study have their own headings. You’ll also find lots of topics that are not typical “seminary” subjects. Did you know we have databases for everything from the visual arts, economics, and law to psychology, environmental science, and education? If you’re working on an interdisciplinary paper or project — something that combines theology or biblical studies or Christian education with a non-theological field — chances are we have full-text database resources you can use. We’d also like to highlight the fact that one of the subject headings is Spanish-Language Resources — these are databases that are intentional about including research materials in Spanish, and will continue to update their Spanish-language offerings.

On the right side of the page you’ll find a list of the most popular databases, so if you can’t remember which database you want, look there — it’s probably one of the big ones like Academic Search Complete, ATLAS Plus, or JSTOR. A little further down the page on the right side, you’ll also find a list of our newest databases, or databases to which we have a trial membership for a limited time. Right now we’re using that section to highlight all the databases we have that you might not expect to find in a theological library.

Two brand-new databases, APA PsycBooks and APA PsycTests, are listed on the page but do not yet have live links. We’ll have access to those in just a few days, and we’ll let you know on the Library’s Facebook page when they’re available.