ATLA Religion Database

ATLA Religion Database
Producer American Theological Library Association (United States)
Access
Providers EBSCO
Cost Subscription
Coverage
Disciplines Theology, religious studies
Format coverage Journal articles, essays, book reviews
Temporal coverage 1949-present, with retrospective indexing for some journals back to the nineteenth century
Geospatial coverage Global
Number of records Over 1.82 million
Update frequency Quarterly
Links

The ATLA Religion Database (ATLA RDB) is an index of academic journal articles in the area of religion.[1] It is updated quarterly and published by the American Theological Library Association (ATLA). The database indexes articles, essays, and book reviews related to a wide range of scholarly fields related to religion. The database is available on a subscription basis through a database aggregator.

The total database includes over 1.8 million article citations from over 1,700 journals. There are more than a quarter of a million essay citations from more than 18,000 multi-author works. The number of book reviews is over half a million.[2] ATLA indexes multi-author works, such as Festschriften and conference proceedings, with separate records for each essay.

Formats

The ATLA Religion Database, formerly available on CD-ROM, is a MARC record format database[3] that incorporates several out-of-print indexes, including Religion Index One: Periodicals, Religion Index Two: Multi-Author Works, and Index to Book Reviews in Religion.[1]

Coverage

The database indexes scholarly works on major world religions.[4] There are, however, selection criteria for inclusion according to scholarly merit and scope. More than 60 languages are represented. Some records cover articles as far back as the 19th century. ATLA claims full coverage for core journals back to 1949.

ATLA RDB has received criticism for under-representing the emerging fields of lesbian theology and womanist theology in its coverage.[5]

Scholarly fields with significant degrees of coverage include:

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Golderman, Gail; Connolly, Bruce (April 15, 2011). "Finding Religion". Library Journal 136 (7): 120–126.
  2. ↑ "ATLA Religion Database (ATLA RDB)". American Theological Library Association. Archived from the original on 18 July 2011. Retrieved July 31, 2011.
  3. ↑ Luedtke, Tami (1998). American Theological Library Association Summary of Proceedings. American Theological Library Association. pp. 243–246. ISSN 0066-0868.
  4. ↑ Campbell, Cameron J. (2004). World Religions/Religious Studies in ATLA's RDB. American Theological Library Association Summary of Proceedings. pp. 85–89. ISSN 0066-0868.
  5. ↑ Smailes, Suzanne A. (May 1996). Reliability of Coverage of Periodical Indexing of Lesbian Theological and Womanist Theological Articles in the ATLA Religion Database (Master of Library Science thesis). Kent State University.

External links