Head, Media & Reserve Services
Media Services
Media Services Online Streaming Databases
About
Support for the study of religion has been consistent at Indiana University from its founding in 1820 to the present. The Libraries' collections reflect the Department of Religious Studies' breadth and depth, with very strong collections in Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism, and rapidly growing collections in Hinduism, and other religions.
Getting Started
In a rush? Try the tabs below.
The main catalog of books at Indiana University is IUCAT. Watch the video below if you need help finding e-books in IUCAT.
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The Indiana University online catalog.
If you are just starting a research project and need to know some basic information to get started, encyclopedias and historical dictionaries are great tools. I particularly recommend the Oxford Research Encyclopedia.
- Encyclopedia of Global Religion byCall Number: E-resourceISBN: 9781452266565Publication Date: 2012The multi-volume Encyclopedia of Global Religion provides a comprehensive overview of the globalization of religious culture and society around the world in both its historical and contemporary aspects. The encyclopedia includes topics related to the diaspora of cultures and dispersions of peoples; the transitional aspects of religious ideas and practices; the cultural diversity of religious traditions; and the responses of religion--both negative and positive--to multicultural society. The volumes include essays on the contemporary religious society of every country in the world. The contributors to the encyclopedia are leading authorities on these topics from around the world.
- Encyclopedia of World Religions
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Encyclopedia of World Religions is a new series from Facts On File that explores the major religions of the world, emphasizing the living faiths and their historical and social background. Each volume was written by an expert in the field, and reviewed and approved by series editor, J. Gordon Melton.
- Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion
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Digital encyclopedia covering the field of religion. Along with essays, the resource also includes audio and visual content. Encompasses the study of scriptures, practices, social contexts, and history across religious traditions, various eras and places from diverse perspectives. - World Religions: Belief, Culture, and Controversy
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Information covering beliefs such as Hinduism, Christianity, Shintoism, Confucianism, and more, including Humanism, Agnosticism and Wicca
Most databases allow you click a box with a name like "scholarly articles," which does a reasonably good job of limiting your results to high-quality, academic articles.
- America: History & Life
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Bibliographic database focusing on the history and life of the United States and Canada, indexing more than 1,800 journals published, dissertations and reviews.
- ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials
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ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials is a combined index to journal articles, book reviews, and collections of essays in all fields of religion, biblical studies, world religions, church history, religious perspectives on social issues.
- Historical Abstracts
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Index to journals, chapters and theses about world history, 1450 to present. - JSTOR
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Provides searchable full-text of historical runs of important scholarly journals in the humanities, arts, sciences, ecology, and business. - Project Muse
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Provides full text access and indexing for e-journals and e-books from a variety of scholarly publishers. Covers the fields of literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and many others.
Although IU has access to newspapers from around the world, most of our large collections of historical newspapers center on the United States. Check out the "Old News" link below for non-American newspapers.
- Chronicling America
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Access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages. Search historic newspaper pages from 1789-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
- Newspapers.com World Collection
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Contains full runs and portions of runs of well-known, regional and state titles to small local newspapers in the United States and other countries. - ProQuest Historical Newspapers
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Digital archive of historical newspapers. Each issue of each title includes the complete paper, cover-to-cover, with full-page and article images.
For most Religious Studies research, at least through the undergraduate level, you can probably find plenty of sources right in Bloomington (or wherever you are, using your IUB login). In addition to all the physical collections at IU (including the Lilly Library and University Archives), many of which include collections relevant to the study of religious cultures, IU has paid for access to online databases that include primary sources from all over the world and all periods of human history. Finally, libraries, archives, museums, and other institutions have digitized many of their collections and made them freely available. Contact me if you need help.
- AM Explorer
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Allows users to search all Adam Matthew digital collections.
- Gale Primary Sources
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Provides an interactive research environment that allows researchers to cross-search Gale digital archives.