ATLA Religion Database (1949- )

Database Description
Fields in This Database: Authors · Titles and Publishing Information · Scripture Citation · Subjects · Issue Numbering · Codes

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Database Description: The ATLA Religion Database is the premier index to journal articles, book reviews, and collections of essays in all fields of religion. The database covers these subject areas: Bible, archaeology, and antiquities; human culture and society; church history, missions, and ecumenism; pastoral ministry; world religions and religious studies; and theology, philosophy, and ethics

The ATLA Religion Database includes a full range of index citations to journal articles, essays in multi-author works, and book reviews from three ATLA print/online indexes:

1. Religion Index One: Periodicals (RIO)
2. Religion Index Two: Multi-Author Works (RIT)
3. Index to Book Reviews in Religion (IBRR)

Journals are selected for inclusion according to their scholarly merit and scope. Journals representing all the major religious faiths, major denominations, and numerous language groups are included. Journal list.

For multi-author works, such as Festschriften and conference proceedings, ATLA indexes each individual essay.

Retrospective Indexing Project: ATLA has begun a project to index retrospectively as many as possible of the 130+ periodical titles currently in ATLA's RDB that predate the advent of Religion Index One (RIO), 1949 to the present. Many titles that commenced publication in 1940 or later will be indexed. Earlier titles will be indexed as time and resources permit.

PRODUCED BY: The American Theological Library Association (ATLA).
DATES COVERED: 1949-present (RIP records 1843-1947; select Methodist Reviews records from 1818).
UPDATES: Quarterly.

Fields in This Database

AUTHORS

AUTHORS (.AU.): Personal names are given last name first, followed by first name or initial, and sometimes middle name or initial. All words are indexed. If you are unsure how the name is given, begin searching by surname only. For hyphenated surnames, use either surname or both. A name may be followed by a code that identifies the person's responsibility:

aft – Author of afterword, colophon, etc.
ann – Annotator
aui – Author of introduction
aut – Author
com – Compiler
ctb – Contributor
dte – Dedicatee
edt – Editor
ill – Illustrator
ive – Interviewee
ivr – Interviewer
red – Redactor
rev –Reviewer
ths – Thesis advisor
trc – Transcriber
trl – Translator

CONFERENCE AUTHOR (.CNF.): Name of conference or meeting as author.

CORPORATE AUTHOR (.CO.): Name of organization (association, institution, conference, corporation, or government agency) as author.

TITLES AND PUBLISHING INFORMATION

TITLE (.TI.): Title of the article, essay, book, or book review. For records that describe complete journals or journal issues, TI is the journal title.

JOURNAL OR SOURCE TITLE (.JN.): For journal articles and book reviews, the journal in which the article or review was published. For essays, the title of the host book (searching a title in JN finds the separate records for individual essays in the collection).

BOOK REVIEWED (.BKR.): Title, author, and publication information of the book being reviewed. Searching with BKR retrieves only book reviews, not the book itself.

CONTENTS (.CON.): For multi-author books and some articles and essays, CON lists the contents, such as the authors and titles contained within the work.

The following publishing information applies only to books and serials (not articles, reviews, or essays):

SCRIPTURE CITATION

SCRIPTURE CITATION (.SCR.): Book, chapter, and verse of a Biblical reference in the publication. References in this field use arabic citation conventions. See also Searching and Browsing Scripture.

SUBJECTS

SUBJECTS (.SU.) encompasses all kinds of subjects:

• Topical description of the content of the publication
• Classification heading (books and serials only)
• Names of people, places, organizations, and conferences as subjects
• Scripture citations
• Titles of works as subjects

For more precise results, you may search by one of the specialized subject types listed below. However, to search these specialized fields effectively, you need to understand how records are constructed by the indexers.

CLASSIFICATION HEADING (.CCD.): For books and serials, CCD contains the heading that describes the topical content of the publication.

CONFERENCE NAME SUBJECT (.CNFS.): Name of a conference or meeting that is the subject of the publication.

PERSONAL NAME SUBJECT (.PS.): Name of a person who is the subject of the publication.

SCRIPTURE CITATION (.SCR.): Book, chapter, and verse of a Biblical reference in the publication. References in this field use arabic citation conventions. See also Searching and Browsing Scripture.

CORPORATE NAME SUBJECT (.SUBC.): Name of an association, institution, conference, corporation, or government agency that is the subject of the publication.

GEOGRAPHIC NAME SUBJECT (.SUBG.): Name of a place that is the subject of the publication.

TOPICAL SUBJECT (.SUBJ.): The topical description of the content, from the ATLA Thesaurus (1994, print) used by the professional indexers of this database. Thesaurus updates are available online. SUBJ also contains genre terms that describe the nature of the content, such as Autobiographies or Short Stories.

TITLE SUBJECT (.SUTI.): Title of a work, story, or parable that is the subject of the publication. For Biblical references, SUTI contains, as applicable, testament, book, chapter range, treatment, language, etc. See also Searching and Browsing Scripture.

ISSUE NUMBERING

YEAR (.YR.): Year of publication for all record types.

MONTH (.MO.): Month of the issue in which the article or review appeared. Months are given as 1- or 2-letter abbreviations; seasons may be abbreviated or spelled out.

VOLUME (.VO.): Volume of the journal in which the article or review appeared.

NUMBER (.NO.): Number of the issue in which the article or review appeared.

ARTICLE PAGINATION (.PGAT.): If you remember the starting page of an article or review but not the full citation, searching with PGAT might be useful. Enter the starting page and the truncation symbol $.

CODES

ACCESSION NUMBER (.AN.): Record control number assigned by database producer; unique to each record in the database. Searching by AN is a method for returning directly to a record that you have retrieved previously.

ARTICLE TYPE (.AT.): The type of publication:

Article – journal articles
Book – reviewed books or multi-author books
Essay – individual essays within multi-author books
Issue – individual issues of journals indexed in this database
Multimedia – nonprint items (web sites, motion pictures, maps, sound recordings, etc.)
Review – book reviews
Serial – journals indexed in this database

ISSN (.IS.): The International Standard Serial Number of the journal.

LANGUAGE (.LA.): A 3-character code representing the language of the publication. For a complete list of codes, see MARC Code List for Languages at the Library of Congress. Examples:

eng – English
fre – French
ger – German
gre – Greek
heb – Hebrew
ita – Italian
lat – Latin
spa – Spanish
und – Undetermined (used for most book reviews)

UNIFORM RESOURCE LOCATOR (.URL.): URL where you can find an online version of the document. Any URL element offset by slashes is searchable. To search the organization address, such as "jbe.la.psu.edu", enclose the search within quotation marks (because of the embedded periods). This search finds only online documents cited by the ATLA, not online articles linked by OhioLINK's Find It.

February 2007

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