Journal searching and title lists

A valuable new feature of the ATLA-RDB in its FirstSearch form is the ability to link from some article records directly to an online version of the article. At this point, the contents of about 80 religious-studies periodicals are available through ATLA-RDB, and more are continually being added. To see a full list of the journals included and their coverage, go to the ATLA Serials (ATLAS) Online alphabetical lists.

The Source or Source Phrase field

You may wish to find out whether any articles are available on your research topic in a particular periodical. For example, perhaps you'd like to find articles published about Jericho in the journal Biblical Archaeologist.

The title of the journal should be entered in the Source or Source Phrase field. A Source Phrase search makes an exact match with the title. Choosing Source will broaden your search a bit, looking for keywords in the title of a journal -- it's less precise, but more inclusive. Use Source if you get poor results with Source Phrase.

You will receive a set of articles about Jericho that appeared in this particular journal. Some of these are now available in full-text form online. To view one of these as a scanned image, click on the message View Full Text on remote site (ATLA). It might say instead View Full Text in GIF format (ATLA), or some other format such as HTML or PDF.

When the article opens, you will see a bar across the top offering important navigation links. Use Prev and Next to move through the article, or jump directly to a certain page by entering the page number in the box and hitting the Enter key. The link TOC will show you a table of contents for that issue. And if you wish to produce a paper copy of any part of the article, click on Display/Print and follow the onscreen instructions. For additional help with printing, click here.

There is additional information here that you might not recognize immediately. Click on the link marked Issue List. You receive a page showing the available digitized issues in the year of the article you have chosen (in this case, 1951). In the upper left corner, notice the link Go to Volume List.

If you click on this link, you can see the total full-text scanned holdings for that particular journal. In the case of Biblical Archaeologist, at least some digitized issues are available as far back as volume 1 (1938). Notice that this page also shows you another important fact : Biblical Archaeologist ceased publication under that title in 1997, and is now known as Near Eastern Archaeology. A click on that link takes you to the volume list for the journal under its new title.

Going directly to a volume list

You can also go more directly to a full volume list for a periodical. In the Search for: box, enter only the name of a journal -- for example, Muslim World. Choose the category Source or Source Phrase. Then, from the drop-down menu beside Limit to: Document Type, choose Serial.

If the journal you have chosen is available in digital full-text form through this database, you will receive one record that contains a View Full Text link. Clicking on this link will give you that journal's volume list page, from which you may reach any digitized issue. Use this method if you have a citation for a journal article, but not a reliable title or author's name.

Finding the most recent volumes

Please be aware that the most recent volumes of any journal may not be available in digitized full-text form. There is often a time lag of as much as two or three years. In the case of Near Eastern Archaeology, the most recent volume available online is 68 (2005). For the most recent issues of any periodical, consult our Library's online catalog. Do a Journal Title search to see our Library's holdings in paper form. The catalog record will show you the latest issues in our collection.

For the most recent issues in online form, you should also consult our Library website's list of additional Electronic Journals. We subscribe to these titles directly from their publishers (rather than through the ATLA-RDB). Many of these include the current volume. This list is limited, of course : the Library subscribes to about 240 periodical titles in electronic form, but more than 900 on paper, so the chance that we will own any particular journal on paper is much greater. But if you are off campus and cannot reach the Library, the electronic journals may help you obtain needed materials.